


Tyrants and Kings

by tenshinokorin



Series: Running Down a Dream - (Main Story & B-sides) [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Ending, M/M, Multi, and now for the dramatic conclusion, cleanup on aisle xv, no unsolicited concrit please, running down a dream, traveling with your friends gives your life meaning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-09-30 17:33:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10168175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenshinokorin/pseuds/tenshinokorin
Summary: From Altissia to the end of the road, and everything after.





	1. Departures

**Author's Note:**

> _Who'll be the last to die for our mistakes?_   
>  _The last to die for our mistakes?_   
>  _Whose blood will spill?_   
>  _Whose heart will break?_   
>  _Who'll be the last to die?_   
>  _Tyrants and kings both meet the same fate_   
>  _strung up at your city gate_   
>  _Who'll be the last to die for our mistakes?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The kids asleep in the back seat_   
>  _We're just counting the miles, you and me_   
>  _We don't measure the blood we've drawn anymore_   
>  _We just stack the bodies outside the door_

They were the longest days of Prompto's life. 

Though the sunlight perceptibly began to dwindle, there still seemed to be no end to his waking hours, which were bereft of any comfort or solace that Prompto could give or receive. At the least, he tried to make himself useful. The care he offered Ignis was met with a thin-lipped smile, one that could not conceal Ignis' humiliation at having to accept it. Gladio's guilt wounded him as though a hundred enemy blades had been driven through his body and left there, protruding razor-sharp and bloodstained, rendering him lethal to anyone who might try to reach out to him. But compared to Noct's wounds, they were mere paper-cuts.

Noctis Lucis Caelum CXIV had, overnight, become his own stone-faced effigy. No potion or plume or maiden's kiss could restore to them what had been lost during Leviathan's rage. While his friends grieved, Prompto grieved for his friends. All their dreams were shattered, as they were, and he bitterly cursed his own helplessness to do anything about it. Altissia was not big enough to hold their anguish, but they managed to take it with them nevertheless, and it engulfed everything. 

There was some mercy in the fact that it was the part of their journey he least remembered. There were few photographs to remind him of it when he looked back later, apart from a view here and there from a train window, as he could not find it in himself to take any pictures of himself or his companions. Gladio's crushing disappointment in himself hardened into a fury that he could not be bothered to contain, and Noct, to avoid it, took to sleeping in the backseat of the Regalia in the freight car, retreating to its shelter like a ghost drawn inexorably back to its own tomb. 

Prompto woke up every morning with the cold feeling that this was the path to the bad ending of the game, and he had not made a backup save. But for the life of him, he couldn't figure what wrong dialog choice he had made, what monster he had killed that he was supposed to spare. Maybe the bad choice had been to come along in the first place, but of all the regrets he had, he could not bring himself to regret that. Not once. Not for an instant. Even when he found himself sitting at a window and thinking that if the whole goddamn train derailed into a ravine, it would be more of a mercy than anything. 

"Only time, Prompto," Ignis said suddenly. 

They were alone in the sleeping compartment, and Prompto had not said anything for a while, watching the dark rattle by outside. He had thought Ignis was asleep, lying on his back in the berth with one hand over his face. Noct was hiding in his father's car and drowning in his memories; Gladio was drowning himself in the train bar. 

"Only...what? Time for what?" 

Ignis sighed. "It's all that will help. Time." 

"Your eyes?" Prompto said, thinking of what the doctors had said in Altissia. The optimistic ones, anyway. There had not been many of those. 

"Us," Ignis said, and he sounded so weary and defeated that it was almost enough to bring Prompto to tears. "Though I confess I don't think I'll live long enough to see it; there's not enough time in a man's life to heal some wounds." 

"Ignis!" It was one thing for Prompto to consider the quick mercy of a train-wreck, but the defeat and resignation in Ignis' voice hit him like a blow. 

Ignis rolled over on his side in the bunk, his back to Prompto, to the world. "Forgive me," he said, shakily. "A moment of self-indulgence. Or perhaps, of self-pity. I must beg your pardon. I should not burden you further, you've been trying so hard--" 

"It's all I can do," Prompto whispered. "It's no use, but--" 

"No use? It's all that is holding us together, my boy." Ignis took a deep breath and crushed his fist against the bridge of his nose, as he had done when the pain from his injury had been the worst. "You are. I know what a weight it must be. But please, for the love of all that's sacred, don't give up on us. On Noct. I should be helping, but I can't. It hurts him to even look at me--hurts both of them. I don't blame them for not being here." 

In the past weeks Prompto had gotten more familiar with Ignis than he had ever thought to be, but comforting him was somehow an impossible intimacy, even more so than helping him shave and find his socks. Ignis rebuffed all attempts at pity with his scalding wit, made wry comments about how glad he was all his clothes were black as he couldn't bear to be mismatched. But he did not pull away this time, as Prompto climbed in the berth--which was barely big enough for one man--and curled up behind him. 

"Ah, Prompto," Ignis breathed, and drew Prompto's arm around him, putting both their hands over his heart. It was a comfort for them both to feel it beating, a strong and steady proof of survival. "Sometimes I fear we're not worth your affection. I apologize for all we've put you through." 

"I'm not sorry," Prompto said, into the curve of Ignis' shoulder. Since Altissia Noct had ruled his heart and his bed both like a hermit kingdom, and Prompto had not realized how desperate he was for the comfortable warmth of a friend beside him. He knew now that Ignis must have felt much the same, as the tense line of his back relaxed for the first time in weeks. "I'll do whatever I can to help. It's not enough, but--" 

"It's more than we can ever repay," Ignis said, and his fingers tightened around Prompto's. "And I'm a selfish and greedy man to ask for more, but... would you...please stay? If you would be so kind? It need only be until I can sleep." He spoke quickly, in an undertone, as though afraid any hesitation on his part would silence him. It was so hard, Prompto knew, for him to ask for anything. "I haven't--- it's been hard to sleep, since--then. My dreams are so vivid. But I think, with you there..." 

"I'll stay," Prompto said. "I'll stay until morning, Ignis." And something knotted up inside him loosened, gave way, and let him breathe. Time, Ignis had said. 

Prompto would give them all the time he had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the other half of [Running Down a Dream](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9225995), and it will take our boys to the end of one road--and the start of another. The song is quoted in the notes and chapter headers is _The Last to Die_ , which also inspired the fic title (which is also the title of my FFXV writing playlist). Lyrics are Springsteen, but I prefer the Pet Shop Boys version in every way. 
> 
> So this is the end. I'll do everything I can to put this story to rights. But before I can mend it, I've got to find all the pieces. It's going to sting, but I have to ask you to trust me. If you can trust anyone who once dumped Noct into a batch of hallucinogenic mushrooms and caused a romantic misunderstanding because of Gladio's underpants. 
> 
> ( _And I hold you here in my heart as things fall apart._ )


	2. Armistice

Ignis Scientia had had quite enough. Enough of staggering blindly through the rain and muck, enough of bad food and worse sleep, and enough of the Empire's rubbishy railway system, but mostly he'd had quite enough of being used as an excuse for everyone to wallow in how awful it all was. 

So he was blind. It could be worse. He'd never been able to see much without his glasses, anyway, and now was hardly helpless on the battlefield once he'd gotten his bearings. He'd done years of blind-fighting training back in the city, knowing that if he lost his glasses in battle he'd still have to fight, and those skills were serving him in good stead. As he healed he could feel other senses begin to compensate as well; already he knew Prompto by the mango scent of his hair product and Noct by his, which was green-apple. (Gladio, for his part, smelled a great deal more like whiskey than he ought to.) And even in the depths of a rain-soaked quarry, when everyone stank of stagnant water and sweat, he could still tell them apart by the distinct sounds of their breathing, each as unique as a fingerprint. It was remarkable, really. He had never been one to shirk from a challenge, and he would conquer this as he had everything else. So enough of the _Poor Ignis But What About Ignis_ routine.

So Gladio was mad. What else was new? He could, Ignis thought, get glad in the same damn pants he got mad in. He'd had it up to the neck with everyone creeping around everyone else and generally being dicks to one another, as if things weren't bad enough as it was without Prompto being in a constant state of lip-wibble, Gladio sulking in his cup noodle, and Noct insulating himself from everyone and everything with a thick layer of his own misery. It was, to put it bluntly, _not on_. And Ignis was going to say so. 

Just as soon as he sorted out where everyone was. 

"Sorry, Iggy," Prompto said, splashing back towards him from some place ahead. "Ran into a couple Gurangatches ahead on the trail. Noct and Gladio're polishing them off. En Be Dee." 

"Well then I shan't rush," Ignis said wryly, and felt behind him for a tree to lean against. He could hear the sounds of Noct and Gladio fighting a few yards off: the ring of steel and shouts of exertion over more monstrous noises, and all painfully devoid of their usual friendly banter. 

"I wanted to say thanks," Prompto said. Ignis could tell from his tone that Prompto was feeling emotional and trying to put a veneer of cool over top of it. "For what you said, down by the tomb." 

"It needed saying," Ignis sighed. "And actually a good bit more than that. I've got more to say, if those two don't take all afternoon to dispatch one beast." 

"Actually--" There was a pause as Prompto stood up to get a good look at what was going on. "The monster's down. They're just--oh _no--_ " 

Ignis calmly reached up and his fingers unerringly found the back of Prompto's vest before Prompto could sprint off. He'd gotten very good at that over the past few weeks. "Let me guess. Kicking the shite out of each other, are they?" 

"Yes," Prompto sounded desperate. "I'd better go--" 

"Do what? Take a picture? Stick the kettle on? Let them be." 

"But they're gonna kill each other--" 

"Doubtful." Ignis chuckled. "But if they did it would solve our problems, wouldn't it?" 

"Ignis!" Prompto sounded horrified, and it only made Ignis laugh more. It was a disused, rusty kind of laugh, but it felt remarkably good. Prompto was trying very hard to stay somber himself, but could hardly manage it after a comically wet squelch from Noct and a loud yelp from Gladio. Gladio called Noct something that no retainer should ever so much as think about his liege, and Noct paid back in kind, even though he'd never even met Gladio's mother. There was another splash as they connected again, and Prompto put a hand over his mouth to choke back his own giggle. 

"It's all right to laugh, Prompto," Ignis smiled. "Nobody said you could never laugh again, even if you're still sad. You're not dead, and Gods know we could all use it." 

"It just seems--It's not right. With everything that's going on. Laughing about--" He broke off with a triumphant shout. "Ooooh, Yeah! Nice one Noct! Wow _that_ musta hurt. Serves him right, shoving me in the goddamn face earlier. _GETTIM NOCT!_ " 

"Shall we place wagers?" Ignis asked, brightly. "My money's on Noct." 

"Mine too actu--ah, ooooh. Or maybe not. Gladio's got his arms around him." 

"Good," Ignis said, with feeling. "They can hug it out." 

"Looks more like squeezing it out, to me." 

Ignis shrugged. "Tomato, tomahto. As long as it pops both their heads out of their arses, it's fine." 

"I think they're slowing down." Prompto said.

"Pity. I could have gone for a coffee." 

In the dripping wet of the abandoned quarry there was a squelch, a crunch, and a lot of wheezing. Noct told Gladio to fuck off, Gladio said he could not in good conscience fuck off unless his king had done so first, and there wasn't any livestock around for that, someone punched someone else, and then there was laughter-- laughter that was broken up with gasps of pain and not entirely stable. 

"Oh god," Prompto said. "D'you think they've finally cracked?" 

"No," Ignis said, getting to his feet even before Prompto reached out to steady his elbow. "I think they're finally mending. Let's go survey the wreckage, shall we?" They sloshed together through the shallow pool until they got to where Gladio and Noct still lay, gasping on their backs in the muck, both bloody and muddied, with a dead monster between them. 

"Well," Ignis said, folding his arms. "Got anything to say for yourselves?" 

"Ow?" Noct said, after a moment's consideration. 

"I went easy on ya," Gladio answered. "Don't bitch." 

"Let me know if you need help finding the rest of your teeth," Noct shot back, with a grim note of satisfaction in his voice. 

"Honestly," Ignis said, in fond exasperation. "It's like running a preschool. Can you walk? Either of you?" 

Gladio and Noct both made noncommittal noises. 

Ignis clicked his tongue. "Well if you can manage to keep up with a blind man, we're leaving. I for one have had quite enough of this mudhole." He started off in the direction of the elevator, which he knew by the barest shift in the grey-black that was his vision now, and a faint smell of cafeteria food and diesel fuel on the breeze. "Come along, Prompto." 

"You guys need a potion?" Prompto offered. "I've got--" 

"Don't you dare," Ignis said, clambering up over the wet rocks. "They dished it out, they can eat it. No potions for them till we're back at the station." 

"I thought tough love was my job," Gladio said, to the drizzly sky, as he blotted his split lip on the back of his hand. 

"You sure act like it's your job," Noct said, and winced as he got to his feet, one hand to his ribs. "But don't expect me to pay you." 

Gladio snorted. "When was the last time I got _paid_?" 

"Shit," Noct said, and wiped at his bloody nose. "Right now? You're lucky you aren't fired." 

"Walking away now," Ignis sang back at them. "Gods help you all if I fall over and skin my knee while you lot argue, because you'll be six months sorting out whose fault it is." 

"Shiva, no," Prompto said, with feeling, and ran to catch up. "Once was enough." 

Gladio slapped his king ungently on the shoulder. "I don't know," he said, with something like a grin. "I think we could go another round." 

"Or two," Noctis said, and limping and leaning against each other, they followed after.

~o~


	3. Princess

"Hey guys," Noct said, as Ignis and Gladio started towards the door of Emperor Aldercapt's empty throne room, "Five minute break." 

"Do we really have time for--" Gladio began, but shut up when he saw Prompto sitting down against the black marble foundation of the throne, his head in his hand. (Ignis' unerring cane-whack in Gladio's shins played no small part in quieting him, either.) 

"Of course," Ignis said, as though Noct had merely suggested they pull over the car for a bathroom break. "We've all been in a dead run since we joined back up. Gladio, come help me have a look at this machinery." 

"Ah. Sure," Gladio said, rubbing his knee with a wince, as they went to give Prompto and Noct as much privacy as Gralea could afford. Which, considering Ardyn's surveillance and incessant commentary, was probably not very much. Noct was grateful, all the same, and went down on one knee beside Prompto.

"I'm okay," Prompto said, heaving a deep breath. "Sorry. My legs just went out. Guess I ran out of adrenaline." 

"You've been running on empty this whole time." Noct felt around in his pockets for a potion. "Here. You'd better take this. No point in hoarding them now that I've got the armiger and everything back." 

"I don't really--" Prompto began, but Noct folded Prompto's hand around the bottle and broke it, sending up a mist of healing magic that began to knit up the jagged cut on Prompto's temple. Noct winced as he realized how much of what he'd taken for dirt on Prompto's skin was actually bruising, now that it started to fade.

"When did you last eat something?" Noct asked, thinking that he should have had the sense to ask that an hour ago, but he'd been too glad to see Prompto alive to worry about practicalities. 

Prompto frowned over the top of Noct's head. "Um. What day is it?" 

"Hell if I know." Noct shook his head with a bitter laugh. "No wonder you shut down." He found what he was looking for in his jacket, and cracked the can open. "Here. I've been getting these out of the vending machines here, they're pretty good. Probably better not to ask what's in 'em." 

Prompto took the protein drink and downed half of it at one go, leaning his head back against the black marble throne. With the absent emperor's robes lying across the seat, they both might have been squeamish about it at any other time, but they were long past such niceties. "It's delicious," Prompto gasped, when he had to stop long enough to breathe. "Thanks." 

Noct tried not to stare at Prompto's face as he finished off the drink, tried not to be so obvious in his desperate need to memorize his best friend's profile. But Prompto caught him at it, even if he had the reason all wrong. 

"You checking my freckles to make sure they're in the right spots?" Prompto dragged the back of his hand over his mouth, which was drawn back in something that wasn't a smile. "I'm the real me, don't worry. Ask me what my King's Knight login is if you don't believe me." 

Noct winced, remembering the fear and hesitation in Prompto's eyes when they'd found him. Indeed, he wondered if he'd ever be able to forget it. Prompto's last memory of Noct had been of Noct inexplicably trying to murder him; small wonder Prompto was wary. But Noct could not bring himself to think of it, to think of all the days they'd been apart and the grief and betrayal he must have felt.

"I believe you," Noct said, "And it's ShutterBro735 and always has been. You use the blue elemental board and have a Starknight Odin as your team leader." 

" _Heretic_ Starknight Odin," Prompto corrected him, crumpling the empty drink can. 

Noct's laugh was short and sad. "Thanks for going ahead and proving who you are. You didn't have to." 

"I figured it couldn't hurt." Prompto's eyes narrowed in the closest thing to hate Noct had ever seen on his face. "He told me what he did, you know. The trick he pulled on you. He was real pleased about it. And about my... about me." Prompto tilted his head to the ceiling, indicating Ardyn and everything he'd wrought. "What a fucking monologuer, seriously." 

Noct looked at Prompto's hands, his scraped knuckles and dirty fingernails, and the wrist-full of bracelets he'd used to hide his secret. "I fell for it," Noct breathed, and softly punched the Imperial crest woven into the carpet under his knees. "I totally fell for it. And when I realized what he'd made me do I thought--" Noct tried to swallow, but nothing in his throat seemed to work, tangling up everything he'd waited so long to say. "I thought I'd lost you. I thought I'd lost... everything." Noct closed his eyes and felt the tears leave them, his head heavy under the suffocating weight of his own guilt. "I've got no right to ask you to forgive me---no right to ask you for anything. But if you--" 

Noct didn't get any further, his mouth muffled by Prompto's shoulder, which was suddenly crammed against his face as Prompto hugged him like it was an act of war. 

"Shut _up_ ," Prompto gasped, holding Noct so tightly he bruised them both, and neither of them cared. "The fuck are you doing, bowing your head to me. You're a king. You're _my_ king." Prompto sniffed loudly, and buried his face in Noct's hair. "You came to save me. From a dungeon. I feel like a fucking _princess_." 

It startled a laugh out of Noct; he wrapped his hands around Prompto's waist. "I don't think any game hero threw the Princess off a goddamn train first." 

"Eh," Prompto said, with a shrug that threw back the curtains around Noct's heart. "Probably some retro indie crap about exploding thematic stereotypes, you know." He raked both hands through Noct's hair, lifting them face-to-face, both of them haggard and tear-streaked, both of them never so glad to see anything more. "You were already forgiven, Noct. You were forgiven before you even did anything." 

"Prompto." Noct choked on his own gratitude, closing his eyes as Prompto kissed him, both of them on their knees in the throne room of Lucis' eternal enemy, ten feet away from Ignis and Gladio, probably being shot from half a dozen angles by Ardyn's cameras, and neither one of them able to care. 

"You're never gonna lose me." Prompto ran a thumb over Noct's dirt-smudged cheekbone, his eyes a brighter blue than the sky had been for days. "Even if I somehow got my dumb ass killed, I'd annoy the hell out of Etro until she let me come back and haunt you. And do you really want that? An undead proto-MT rattling chains in your closet in the middle of the night? You don't." His embrace was fiercely protective; he rocked Noct in his arms as though Noct was the one who had been rescued. And maybe he was, Noct thought. It certainly felt that way.

"So," Prompto concluded, "don't throw me off any more moving vehicles, and we're good." 

"I promise. I'm fresh out of moving vehicles anyway." Noct put his hand around Prompto's wrist, brought it to his mouth, and kissed the inked lines just visible under the wrapped bracelets. "And you know, you could have told me about this. Anytime. I wouldn't have cared any more than I do now." 

Prompto's face scrunched up as Noct touched his tattoo, somewhere between bursting into tears and bursting into _geysers_ of tears. Even more than he was already, anyway. "I know," he said. "I tried, that night in Talepar, on the motel roof? But I--I got so scared. What if you couldn't trust me anymore? What if--" 

"What if I thought it was badass?" Noct arched an eyebrow at him. "Because it kinda is."

Prompto was caught utterly off-guard by this admission. "Really?" 

"You're the one talking about exploding retro game thematics. How many times have you played something where the main character is some ex-supersoldier or genetically engineered whatever gone rogue for justice?" Noct rolled his eyes. "It only happens like all the time." 

Prompto blinked at Noct in complete amazement. "I never--I never thought about that." He looked down at his tattoo in newfound wonder. "Huh. You know, I always thought that if this was a game _you'd_ be the main character, but maybe it's really--" 

"Not a chance," Noctis said, and after one more kiss, pulled them both to their feet. 

"You two ready to blow this joint?" Gladio asked, when Ignis coughed to let him know it was all right to turn around again. "Prompto, you okay?" 

"Yeah. I'm okay." Prompto scrubbed his face on the back of his arm, and summoned up a passable version of his old bravado. "Hey! Let's go get our crystal back, bitches." 

"Noct?" Ignis asked. 

Noct shrugged. "You heard the man," he said, and grinned. "Bitches." 

"Can't believe I'm _answering_ to that," Gladio said. "But all right." 

"Wouldn't be the first time," Ignis sighed under his breath, and they left the throne chamber behind them, forlorn and empty as a cage whose bird had long since flown. 

They were running down the echoing corridors of Gralea before it occurred to Noct that of all the things he had lost over that whole blighted spring, Prompto was the only one he got back in one piece.

~o~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I submit that the in-game conversation options were insufficient and need a complete do-over to include _ffs just hug him already_ at all times. (also I have been laid low by a cold and by stupid business at my day job and am barely crawling along but still posting and I owe everyone replies and emails augh sorry)


	4. Crystal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The light of reflection

He was heavy as stone, he was full of light. It shot through him like blades of glass and he felt himself sinking slowly through an infinity of time, falling like the sweet heaviness of sleep. 

_Enter the light of reflection_ , the voice said to him. 

Reflect, Noct thought. Like a mirror? 

_Like a memory._

* * * 

"I've tried to say this to you so many times," Prompto said, his voice rough with emotion. "How much I want you. _Need_ you. But I can't have you for my own. We both know why, sweetheart. You're just too good for me." 

Noct closed the register drawer and glanced across the camera shop to where Prompto lay prone across one of the glass cases. "Are you propositioning the merchandise again?" 

"Vintage LOKTON LX-30 with optional filters and upgraded digital kit," Prompto breathed, fogging up the glass as he did so. "Mint condition. Original crystal lens. With case and cleaning kit." 

"Fifteen thousand crowns," Noct said. 

"Fif. teen. thousand." Prompto wailed, his hands squeaking on the top of the case. "Ugh. It's a _steal_ for a piece like this." 

"No, a steal is what you'd have to do to get that much money." Noct straightened the display of photo paper types on the counter, which Prompto had knocked askew in his devotions. "Considering we barely make minimum wage here." 

"Like you even _need_ this job," Prompto said, putting his head sideways on the case so his cheek was at least near the object of his desires, but he was still able to give Noct an annoyed look. "You're only here 'cos your dad wants you to have the complete peasant experience or whatever." 

"I'm only here because if you worked here by yourself you would never sell so much as a lens cap." Noct came out from behind the counter, spray-bottle in hand. "Get up, and let me clean your prints off this again, before the boss comes back and sees you dry-humping the case." 

"How dare you pollute my pure devotion to this camera with notions of carnal lust," Prompto said, in highest offense. "She's perfect machinery, a jewel of the photographic art, and I'm--" 

"Gonna cry like a baby the day it's sold to someone else." Noct ran his paper towel over the top of the display case, and then sighed an apology when he looked up and saw the stricken expression on Prompto's face. "Sorry, man. But you know it's gonna happen. You could sell a kidney and never pony up the cash for this thing in time." 

"I know," Prompto said, heartbroken. 

"You can't fall in love with every camera that comes in the store--" 

"I can and it's my business if I do," Prompto retorted, but his shoulders slumped in defeat. "I guess this is why you didn't get a job in a tackle shop." 

"Ding ding ding," Noct said. "That, and I wanted to get a job with you. Thought it would be more fun. I didn't know I'd have to compete with five hundred cameras for your attention, though." 

Prompto waved a hand over the case and the camera inside, careful not to smudge the just-cleaned glass. "This one's different, though. She's the one."

Noct let out a long breath, and took a step closer. "Look," he said, in gentle offering. "You know I get an allowance from the palace. Why don't you just let me--" 

"No," Prompto said, in steely determination. "You know how I feel about that. I don't want you spending money on me all the time, it's not right and I can't pay it back." 

"It's just money, Prompto." 

"It's not just money," Prompto insisted, as though it physically hurt him to say so. "You think I don't feel bad enough being the Prince's poor friend?" 

"You're not poor, your parents are--" 

"You know what I mean," Prompto said, and closed his eyes, as though he couldn't stand the temptation of the camera and Noct's offer anymore. "Please, Noct. I can't. Don't---don't ask again, okay?" 

Noct nodded, even as his heart sank. "Okay." 

 

Two weeks later the camera was gone. Prompto knew the minute he walked in, greeting Noct as always and then glancing down at the center case to say hello to his camera. Which was no longer there. Prompto stood in the doorway with his shop apron still in one hand, looking like a man who just watched his favorite puppy run right into traffic. "When?" was all he asked. 

"This morning, start of my shift," Noct said, organizing film canisters and not meeting Prompto's eyes. 

"You sold her?" 

Noct nodded. "I'm sorry. Tried talking up one of those RELM Spectracolor Sixes, but no good." 

Prompto took a deep, wavering breath and blinked very hard several times. "Somebody's really lucky," he said, with forced brightness. "What a great camera. Wish I'd been here to see her--" He simply stopped talking then, because he wasn't fooling himself, or Noct, and slowly pulled his apron over his head. "Sorry I'm late. Train was packed. I'll help you get the pick-up prints in the bin." 

"There'll be another one," Noct said, gently. "C'mon. You'll be mooning over the latest model in no time." 

Prompto simply smiled and shook his head, and did not mention the LOKTON again. 

Noct waited a week, but Prompto's spirits did not improve. He worked the register at the shop and sold cameras and parts as though they meant less than nothing to him, and if possible his mood outside of work was even more bleak. Noct tried everything, from arcade sprees to a sleepover with the complete _King of the Crystals_ movie marathon--director's cut, even. He ordered enough dumplings and egg rolls to feed an army. Nothing worked. 

"Sorry, Noct," Prompto said, sitting at Noct's kitchen counter as they both watched the coffee pot. Dawn was breaking over the Insomnian skyline outside Noct's vast windows. They'd been up all night, while the Dark Knight had become a Paladin and won back his kingdom, and now the movie credits were rolling on the TV. "I know you're trying. I appreciate it." 

"You really loved that camera, huh?" 

"Yeah," Prompto sighed, tracing little squares around his own reflection on the shiny marble countertop. 

"Guess you're not gonna recover anytime soon." Noct pulled two mugs down from the cabinet. 

Prompto moved his lips in a silent no. 

"Then I'd better give you this now." 

Prompto's reflection was suddenly blocked by a shiny silver gift bag, filled with a riot of blue tissue. He recognized it; it was from the camera shop. "What the--what?" 

Noct rolled his eyes as he filled up the coffee mugs. "I was gonna wait for your birthday? But sweet Shiva. You might die before then. Open it, you know what it is." 

Prompto knew. Nestled in the tissue paper was the LOKTON LX-30. He pulled the wrapping apart just long enough to look, then folded the paper over it and gently pushed it away. 

"I can't," he said, very nearly in tears. "Noct. I told you not to buy--" 

"I didn't," Noct said. 

Prompto looked at him in shock. "You didn't... actually _steal_ it, did you?" 

"What?!" Noct plonked Prompto's coffee down on the counter in front of him. "I give you your birthday present like a month early and that's your question?" 

"But if you didn't use your allowance for it, then--" 

Noct held out his hands, defeated. " _God_ , you're such a hardass. I used my salary." 

Prompto waved his hands around the gift bag like it contained a live kitten made of blown glass. "Your. salary. doesn't. cover. this." 

"It could. If I had time." Noct shrugged. "I knew it was gonna go before then. But lucky for you, fate intervened." 

Prompto dared to rest his fingertips against the bag. "...fate?" 

"The shop sold two of your prints," Noct said. "Surprised you didn't notice they were gone, but you were too busy moping, and you never check the sales register like you're supposed to." He could no longer hold back his grin. "It was the skyline one, and the one of the tree in the park. Sold 'em both on the same morning and didn't tell you, made a deal with the owner instead. She let me put the money towards the camera for you and pay the rest out of my check." He cleared his throat, scratched at his messy hair. "Maybe a couple of checks. But it wasn't the Crown that paid for it. It was me." 

" _Noct_ ," Prompto said, completely overcome. His hands closed gently on the bag. "You mean... you mean she's really..." 

Noct tossed off a wave that was perfect courtly etiquette, a ruler who has just granted a token boon to a subject who wouldn't accept the greater favor he was rightly due. "She's all yours. May you have a long and happy life together." 

Prompto still did not take the camera out. Instead he knocked over a chair in his haste as he came around the kitchen counter and tackle-hugged the Prince of Lucis, squeezing him until Noct thought he was going to crack a rib. "You're the _best_ ," he choked into Noct's shirt. "I can't ever--" 

"Don't thank me," Noct said, patting Prompto on the head. "Just take a shitload of pictures, okay? And let me go before you make your camera jealous." 

"Here." Prompto reached for the bag, and handed it back to a puzzled Noct. "Hang on to it. For my birthday. I can wait. It's worth waiting." 

"If you say so." Noct laughed. "But keep going like that and you know you're going to be a virgin on your wedding night." 

"Shut _up_ ," Prompto said, giving him a shove. "You just went to so much trouble. I wanna do it right." 

Noct carefully put the gift bag back in its hiding place behind the mugs. "It's a while yet. You sure you can wait that long?" 

"I gotta read up," Prompto said, his eyes shining. "So I know I can take care of her right. Wouldn't want to do anything wrong the first time I get her out." 

Noct gave him a look. "I take it back," he said. "You're gonna _die_ a virgin." 

"I am married to my _craft_ ," Prompto said, even as he went bright pink all the way to his ears. "But seriously. I can't say anything--it's too much, but... Thank you." 

"Eh, you'd have bought one like it for yourself sooner or later," Noct was finally able to take a sip of his own coffee. "You won't be a poor post-grad forever. I just saved you some time." 

"No," Prompto said softly, his tone almost reverent as he looked beyond Noct and through the window behind him, some strange and powerful realization dawning in his eyes. "It had to come from you. You're right. It was fate."

Noct blinked his confusion. "Don't go all melodramatic, Prompto, it's just a camera--" 

"Yes," Prompto said, and his voice was very different from his usual one. "Yes, exactly. It's a camera. An _old_ camera." Noct's expression made it clear he didn't follow, and Prompto gestured out the windows, where the whole of Insomnia sparkled under the faceted protection of her shield, summoned up by her king, dazzling as the sun climbed above the crenelated skyline. "Noct. Cameras only work because of crystals... and light." 

* * * 

Adrift in the realm of the Astrals, bathed in the crystal's light, Noctis dreamed. He dreamed of his past, of all the days of his life, and the friends who loved the man those days had made. And in Eos, in darkness, Prompto Argentum and all the rest of the world waited for the time to be right for his return. 

~o~


	5. Retreat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's just running away, only more tactical.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _We took the highway till the road went black_   
>  _We'd marked truth or consequences on our map_   
>  _A voice drifted up from the radio_   
>  _Some other voice from long ago_

"Well ain't you the sorriest things I ever did see." Cid surveyed the wreckage of the three men who had turned up at the Succarpe Pier Station on the Sathersea, where Regis' ship had been moored and waiting for weeks now, along with its captain, who was considerably less patient than his vessel. "Sorriest _three_ things," Cid clarified, with emphasis. "Done and lost him, didn'tcha." There was no question in Cid's voice. He peered over their heads at the train that had brought them, its sides torn by daemon-claws, and every other surface scored with heavy battle-damage from Imperial weaponry. The freight car at the end, like all the other cars, was full of nothing but refugees: citizens of Tenebrae and Imperial territories all indiscriminately mixed in their misery. Just as Noct was obviously not with them, the Regalia was also not there, either. " _And_ the car." Cid took off his cap and slapped it against his knee in frustration. "Kids these days. Can't ya hang on to a damn thing?" 

"It seems we cannot," Ignis said sadly, one hand resting on Gladio's shoulder for guidance.

"He better not be dead," Cid said, and his rusted-metal voice had a surprisingly sharp edge. "Or you boys gotta lot of explaining to do." 

"He's _not_ dead," Prompto shot off furiously, the comeback of a man who has worked very hard to convince himself of something and won't let anyone put him off of it now. "He's in the crystal." 

"And the crystal is where?" Cid asked, giving them a beady look. 

"He's not _in_ the crystal," Gladio sighed, too tired to even swear. 

Cid made a scornful cough. "Boys. Yer king can only be in one place at a time, unless he's dead, an' even then there's limits. Now either he's in the goddamn rock--which you left behind--or he ain't. This ain't a hard question. Which'un is it?" 

"The crystal has transported him beyond our reach," Ignis said, passing a weary hand over his hair. "He is in the care of the Astrals now, and on the path to his destiny. They will return him to us when they deem it time to do so, and not a minute before." 

Gladio squinted hard at the invisible horizon beyond the ship; Prompto's left hand opened and closed around his right wrist, and it seemed none of them could look at Cid or even at each other, not even those of them that could still see. 

Cid's expression softened. "So ya'll done what ya s'poss'ta do, I reckon." 

"I hope so," Ignis said, while Prompto hugged himself and Gladio's hands curled into useless fists. "And I fear there's nothing more to be done here." 

"Hurts like hell. Don't it." Cid knew for a fact how much it hurt; and there was genuine kindness and sympathy in his lined face. "Y'all need somethin' t'eat? That Imperial hash ain't good enough for hogs. Hooked a couple trevally this morning--" 

Prompto flinched as though he had been struck across the face, and Cid immediately realized he'd jabbed an open wound. "Well. Never mind that. Just get yer asses on board." 

"Thank you, Cid," Ignis said, his voice strained with exhaustion and emotion. It had been a very long train ride, for all of them, in every possible way. "We'd best not linger. Other ships need our place in the harbor in order to transport refugees, and there's no time to waste. If you would be so good, please, as to take us home." 

  


"It's no use," Prompto said, down in the stateroom as the boat engines roared to life all around them. "We haven't got a home anymore." 

"We have as much home as anyone does, and far more than some." Ignis sank down on one of the leather couches as Gladio unfolded the other one out into a bed. 

They'd come from Gralea with Biggs and Wedge and only one train car, shivering as they passed through Shiva's grave. But after that, in Tenebrae, they'd hooked up as many functioning cars as the engine could pull. Even with Aranea airlifting people to Lestallum non-stop, every square inch of the train had still been crammed with refugees. There'd been no space for the three of them to mourn or even stretch out, but grief was commonplace on that journey, and the mutual heartbreak around them was almost a comfort. Now, both the lack of sleep and unshed tears caught up with them all, with extra force for the delay. 

"We'll go to Lestallum, like everybody else," Gladio said, shaking out the blankets. The luxury of the royal stateroom on the boat was almost absurd after all they'd been through, and they looked like bedraggled vagrants squatting amid the gleaming black bulkheads and gold trim. "I hope Iris'n the others have already gone. That lighthouse won't be enough against Daemons 24-7." 

"She's a good girl and a smart one," Ignis said, as Prompto simply sat on the floor where he stood. "I think we need have no fear of her safety. It's ours that's worrying. We'll have a long trip even after we reach Caem." 

"No car," Prompto said dully. "No magic. I wonder if we can still call our chocobos?" 

"Noct had the whistle," Gladio said, and Prompto just flopped over sideways, utterly done with everything.

"Someone. Please. Tell me something that isn't awful." 

"Don't die on the floor," Gladio said. "You'll be in my way." 

"You are _not_ helping." 

"No help for it, anyway." Gladio looked down at the bed, its rich black sheets and down pillows, and then at his own dirty hands. "I gotta take a shower before I get in this." 

"I've got to take a shower before I _crawl out of my own skin_ ," Ignis countered. "And I think we all should. Though I appreciate you doing what you can to help me find my bearings, I don't need to smell you both so well." 

"I could go for an elixir right now," Prompto said, from the floor. 

"So could I." Ignis shook his head. "Pity in our hands they're nothing but soft drinks." 

"I bought some potions at the station. They charged three prices for them and it won't do anything but taste good, but it's better than nothing." Prompto rummaged around in his battered duffel and pulled out a blue bottle, but could not bring himself to open it. Instead he ran his thumb over the swirled glass, and bit his lower lip hard enough to taste blood. "Goddamnit," he breathed, both hands on the bottle. "When's it going to stop? When's it gonna stop hurting? Everything I see, or say... I keep expecting him to--" He broke off and put the bottle to his forehead, bent over his knees in his grief. 

"You want the cheap answer, or the true answer?" Gladio asked. "Because I can tell you that time heals all wounds and it'll get better and all that shit, but you already know that garbage. It'll hurt forever. It'll hurt until he comes back, and then it's just gonna hurt different." 

" _Gladio_ ," Ignis began, and Gladio cut him off with a wave that Ignis could hear if not see. 

"Don't. You know it's true." 

"God, it hurts," Prompto gasped. "Mother of-- I can't even swear at the Astrals anymore. Fuck. Fall off a train, get kidnapped, _and_ break my heart--in the space of one week. This _sucks_." 

"A fitting summation," Ignis admitted.

"I mean, I know my heart's a lost cause? But goddamn if I don't feel like _shit_ all over--" Prompto's hand tightened on the potion bottle, and without warning the heavy glass broke like a Yuletide bauble and dissipated in a shower of sparks. The liquid inside turned to light and magic, and Prompto stared at his fingers in disbelief as the scrapes he'd gotten on the way back from Gralea closed over and vanished. 

There was a moment of stunned silence in the stateroom, as light danced over Prompto's cuts and bruises with the deft touch of a king's hand, and wiped them away like sand from a seashell. 

"Prompto," Gladio began, his jacket half-off. "Was that--" 

"Doesn't _sound_ like seltzer to me," Ignis said. 

" _Noct_ ," Prompto breathed, and it was the first time since Gralea that he had said his name. "Oh my god." 

Ignis quietly put a hand to his face, as though his level expression was in danger of falling off and needed to be secured again. "Well," he said, roughly. "Not so far from us as all that, then." 

Prompto closed his fist around empty air that a second ago had been full of Noct's magic, and pressed his knuckles to his mouth to stifle the sob that tried to get out of him. 

"I guess chosen knights are still chosen knights," Gladio said, looking at the emblem on the back of his jacket. "...even when they don't deserve to be." 

"We've all made mistakes," Ignis said, while Prompto took a minute to get a hold of himself. "There's no need to--" 

"I should have apologized," Gladio said, and let the jacket fall from his hand. It landed in a dusty, defeated pile on the black carpet. "I should have---should have said what I was thinking. That if my dad left me one goddamn thing-- _just one thing_ I could have used against the Empire--If he'd told me _anything_ \--I wouldn't have hesitated to--to..." Gladio's face closed like a fortress gate; he punched the nearest bulkhead hard enough that the engines stuttered and Cid could be heard swearing at the wheel above them. "Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck _fuck_ this is the _worst_ goddamn birdshit I ever saw in my _life_." 

Prompto looked at Gladio in uneasy worry, distracted from his own emotions for a moment. "You mean, what happened in the--" 

"Goddamnit kid, I mean _me_ ," Gladio said, and furiously kicked off his boots. "I'm hitting the shower." 

Ignis put his hand on Prompto's shoulder, holding him down until he heard the bathroom door close. "Leave him be, Prompto. We all have our own wounds to nurse." 

"Are we gonna be okay?" Prompto asked, still looking at his hand. 

Ignis' laugh was small and sad. "Prompto. We were never okay to begin with. Now if you'd be kind enough to help me find the least filthy underthings I have left, I'd appreciate it." 

 

Gladio went straight from the shower to the bed without a word to anyone, lying with his broad, tattooed back to the world as though daring someone to talk to him. Ignis, though surely ready to jump over the side rather than wait for a bath, kindly offered Prompto the shower next. He would, Ignis explained, probably take more time than Prompto. 

Prompto couldn't remember the last time he'd had hot water, or clean fingernails, or brushed teeth. Once he got them he wiped off the fogged-up mirror and looked in disbelief at his own reflection. Even with his physical wounds healed, the lack of sleep and the toll of Gralea lay heavy on his face. When they'd left Insomnia, Prompto was still regularly chafed by the fact that he looked three years younger than he was. Now those three years were showing, and they'd brought along five more friends. 

Prompto reached for the bracelets on the countertop, the ones he'd used to mask his tattoo for so many years. He'd just started to wrap the first one around his wrist when he realized he couldn't stand it. Ignis couldn't see it anyway. Gladio didn't care. Noct... 

_I still think it's kinda badass._

Prompto looked up suddenly at the mirror, but his reflection was the only one there, and he made up his mind. 

"Shower's all yours, Iggy," Prompto said, and chucked his bracelets in his open duffel on his way to the bed. "Oi. Gladio. Move your ass over or go sleep on the deck." 

"Make me," Gladio growled, but obligingly shuffled over a few inches. He left a warm spot that Prompto crawled into, sinking into soft pillows and silk sheets that put the royal suite of the Leville to shame. 

"Is it even bedtime?" Prompto asked. "Guess we'll have to get used to not being able to tell when it's day or night." 

"Oh no," Ignis said, utterly deadpan. "How awful. What will we do." 

Gladio made a noise that was almost a laugh. "Great. Now he gets to lord over us how he was just _preparing for this in advance_." 

"Please, Gladio," Ignis said, lofty. "I've never lorded anything over anyone. I'm a commoner." He shut the bathroom door before Gladio could devise a comeback, and soon the sound of running water was added to the hum of the engines and the slap of the waves. Prompto could feel the motion of the boat rocking them, and he was asleep in less than a minute.

It was still dark when he woke sometime later; dark in the stateroom and dark in the world outside, and he had no idea what time it was. He didn't care, either. What mattered to Prompto was that there were arms around him and they were a comfort in the darkness, an open affection that could not be given so easily by daylight. And well, Prompto thought, there was no daylight left now, was there? 

Prompto reached out, and instead of the emptiness he'd always feared, he found himself caught and held, braced and supported on either side. Not alone. ( _Not alone_ , he had told himself, over and over again in the bitter cold of Gralea. _They'll find me. They'll come for me. Not alone. I'm not dying here alone_.) He was not cold now. His blood felt hot in his veins, his pulse was a clamoring proof of his own survival. Noct was coming back, someday, and Prompto would have to live until then. Starting now, with the three of them left behind. There was no need for any of them to wait for Noct alone. 

It might be only their selfish need to fill the void Noct had left, Prompto knew. They might only be shaping themselves around his absence, as though by outlining that negative space they could call him into being, there with them. It could be simply that they were all desperate and hurting and scared, and all of them needed something solid to hold on to. It could have been lots of reasons. All of them very sound reasons and certainly understandable ones, if not exactly born of logic. 

Prompto decided he'd just pick a good one later. And then, with Ignis and Gladio's hands on him, he let himself quit thinking at all. 

His fingers found all their scars; he knew them without looking, and he gave the old wounds the benediction of his lips. The other two answered him back without hesitation; and though most of Prompto's scars were on the inside, they knew how to find them anyway. Three bodies that for days on end had known nothing but pain and weariness found they could still feel other things. They could still be generous, could still be gentle. They said each others' names and they said his and there was no shame in any of it, in calling on an absent friend much beloved and much missed. He was alive; they were alive, and only apart a little while. And in the height of it they could almost feel him with them, though afterwards Ignis said he would only have told them to let him sleep and to quit making so much noise. 

And when they were exhausted from something sweeter than a struggle, and all the frayed bonds were mended, they slept again; slept in each others' arms as the boat sped through the darkness to an uncertain future, each of them with a tiny light of hope that only burned brighter as the night wore on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go. Hold on, everybody. (Also, Cid is basically exactly my dad? in size, accent, appearance, and demeanor--and if I could ever convince him to grow the beard I'd have him in that cosplay so fast your head would spin.)


	6. Regroup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's what the 'guard and the 'glaive do when they get to hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The sun it sets in flames as the city burns_   
>  _Another day gone down as the evening turns_   
>  _And I hold you here in my heart_   
>  _as things fall apart_

There were places that Prompto Argentum worked very hard to avoid, and not because they were all infested with Daemons now. A bit of road between Insomnia's Blockade and Hammerhead. The abandoned motel in Longwythe. The old chocobo-track. Galdin Quay. It wasn't the hobgoblins and other nasties that put Prompto off; these days he could knock off a dozen of them before he'd even had his morning coffee. Memories, however, were harder things to fight. Prompto had learned, through long practice, that those particular battles were not ones he could win. 

But try as he might, some places were too vital to daily survival to be tiptoed around. Campsites were one of those things; even the Palmaugh Haven one. For a hunter, wiping out as many Daemons as possible was part of the job, and that meant sprinting from Haven to Haven by bird, or to have a reliable vehicle with a seriously potent set of headlights. As much as Prompto liked cars and mechanical things, he preferred the former. He'd never had a car yet that could alert him to unseen danger creeping up on him from behind, or that would pick him up and throw him over its own back before galloping to safety, as Figaro had done on more than one occasion. That was a long time ago, though. Prompto had gotten a little more careful as he'd gotten older. Or maybe in those first years he was still trying to prove something to himself, and to a man who wasn't there. 

Prompto smiled tightly into the embers of his small campfire. That, at least, had not changed. Noct still wasn't there. Squinting across the fire, Prompto could almost see him there as he had been years ago: asleep against his chocobo, or carefully picking all the beans out of his soup, or scowling at his phone as he tried to finagle another harvest out of his Zell tree before the server reset. Old memories. Worn, faded, and threadbare from over-use. They were the ones Prompto allowed himself to have; the early ones, the safe ones. If he ventured too far down that road he would find memories that were dangerous to his hard-won equilibrium; things that, if he let them, would make him turn Figaro free before taking a long walk off of Galdin Quay's shortest pier. Every year that Noct was gone that urge got a little bit stronger. 

Ten years. He had tried not to count them. But as Prompto got older, he found it more and more work to keep track of the things he was supposed to avoid. These days they seemed to deliberately seek him out. And one of them, to his surprise, had just materialized on the other side of his campfire. 

"Amarant tells me she heard her nest-mate," Ignis said, climbing over the rocks with more ease than a man with full sight, and sitting down across from Prompto as though he'd merely returned from getting another coffee, and not that it had been nearly three months since they'd last been within shouting distance. His chocobo, her feathers still carefully dyed a flaming red that Daemons found hateful, settled down next to Prompto's drowsing bird with the same casual familiarity. "I hadn't thought to find you here, Prompto. This time of year you're usually on the other side of the Three Valleys, aren't you?" 

"Bad crop of Thunder Bombs keeps regenerating along the main road," Prompto said, throwing another log on the fire to keep back the chill. Ignis was wearing his old Crownsguard fatigues, as Prompto was, though Ignis' were more carefully kept and mended. They so far had found nothing as protective as their Insomnian gear, with a King's magic woven into every embroidered stitch and blank-eyed skull. The fact that it was a decade out of fashion was the kind of luxurious vanity that had been lost along with the sunlight. "They've been keeping my hands full. I sent in a call to Lestallum for some extra help two days ago." Prompto shook his head with a laugh. "I didn't know I'd be getting you." 

"Then I hope you'll be doubly pleased to hear that Gladio's on his way as well," Ignis said, stretching his hands out to the fire. "Once he's done helping Iris clear out some Ziggurats along the road above the Quay, so Talcott can get this week's generators down. He'll meet us at Hammerhead. Probably already there, I expect." 

"You know," Prompto said, with some exasperation, "You could have _called_." 

"Why?" Ignis twitched an eyebrow in Prompto's direction. "So you can wriggle away and by _pure happenstance_ not be there, like always of late? If I didn't know better, I'd think you were avoiding us." 

"If you didn't know better," Prompto echoed, knowing he'd been caught. "You might think that." 

Ignis reached out to stroke his Chocobo's head. She was his partner on his hunts, not merely his mount, and as fierce a fighter as he was. Her one good eye saw more than Ignis' two ever would, and between them they were the guardians of the road along the Nebulawood, which no one with sight dared hunt, so terrible were the Daemons there. Ignis, in his usual offhand way, would admit that they were a "somewhat tricky" bunch. 

"I know it's hard," Ignis said gently, as Amarant tilted her crimson head to get his fingers to an itchy spot. "Hard to be with us. But surely it's worse to be apart? I've found it so, at least." 

"We can't be together all the time," Prompto said, to the fire. Even though he couldn't see, Ignis' gaze was still hard for Prompto to meet. "There aren't enough good hunters and we lose more every day. If we stayed together it wouldn't be fair, there's too many people depending on us." 

"We could take turns," Ignis offered. "You needn't be out here alone all the time. It isn't good for you. You could spend some time in Lestallum, and we'd see each other more often--though maybe you don't want that." 

"It's not seeing you two that hurts," Prompto breathed, as the log in the fire gave way with a crack like breaking bone. "It's always better... with you. But I can't... every time we have to say goodbye to each other it's just that much harder." 

"Ah," Ignis said in understanding, with a little smile. "That's good to know, then. I was afraid you'd grown to dislike my cooking." 

"Fuck, Ignis," Prompto said, shaking his head. "I'd have to be dead for that." 

For a little while they did not speak, listening to the fire and the comfortable sounds of two sleepy chocobos preening each other. 

"Of course," Ignis said, with the air of a man moving a conversation to more stable footing, "I thought you might have other motives as well. I suppose Miss Aurum has yet to accept your offer of marriage." 

Prompto choked on his water bottle. "Hell. Cindy hasn't accepted my offer of _dinner_ , and I haven't managed to ask her for anything else. What's that about?" 

Ignis tilted up his shades, and the firelight danced on the lenses. "Talcott seemed to think your devotion to Hammerhead was merely in the hopes of attracting her interest." 

"Pffft," Prompto tipped up his bottle again, wishing there was something stronger in it. "Talcott thinks. What does T-cott know? He's a baby." 

"He's nearly twenty." 

"Thanks, Iggy. I didn't feel ancient enough." 

"So I suppose it's mostly sentimental, then." Ignis leaned back against Amarant's soft flank. 

"What is?" 

Ignis' shrug was miniscule, calculated. "You staying at Hammerhead alone." 

Prompto made a face. He should have known Ignis wasn't going to let the matter go so easily. "I'm not alone. There's like a dozen hunters and--" 

"Prompto." 

"Why is it such a big _deal_ where I am anyway? Are you two my parents now or--" 

" _Prompto_ \--" 

"I'm going to be there when Noct comes back, all right?!" Prompto bit his lips, but it was too late. Ignis had gotten him--he always did, and there was no taking back his angry admission. He blinked hard at the fire, the flames doubling in his suddenly blurry vison. "...dammit. I just. I'm going to be there, okay? I don't care if I'm a hundred. It's the message we sent with Umbra, it'll be where he goes first and--and..." 

"And what?" Ignis asked, not unkindly. "What will you say to him? When you see him again, after all this time?" 

"Ha." Prompto gently punched the rocky ground beneath him. "I'm not gonna say anything to that son of a bitch. I'm either gonna kiss him or I'm gonna knock his lights out, and I haven't figured out which." 

"Maybe both," Ignis said, with a sigh of commiseration. "I've considered both. But I suspect we'll have plenty of time to--" He was interrupted, just then, by the shrill beep of his cell phone. Prompto flopped back on the rock as Ignis took the call, only mildly interested. There were no fun phone calls any more. Only deployments and reports, and this sounded like one. "Yes? Ah. Hello Talcott. ...No, on our way back to Hammerhead. Gladio too. ...Indeed, we are. Hah, yes. Three kings in the hand. Why do you ask?" Ignis was silent as he listened and then he sucked in a sharp breath, a noise of shock and surprise so sudden that it made Prompto forget his yawn halfway. Ignis scrambled to his feet and stood there, breathing hard, his fist clenched. Prompto couldn't hear what Talcott was saying. But something heavy and dormant inside him seemed to know, and it lunged to life and slammed against his ribs as Ignis gripped his phone so tightly he almost broke the case. 

" _Put him on the phone._ "


	7. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To those who loved this world, and knew pleasant company therein: this Reunion is for you.

As it so happened, Noctis Lucis Calem was neither kissed nor punched immediately on arrival. In fact it was almost more than the four of them could stand to simply stay on their feet and look at one another; actual physical contact might have undone them entirely. The one thing they could manage to agree on, which Prompto very bluntly laid out for them after nearly ten minutes of aborted attempts at conversation, was that they all looked like complete garbage. Ignis drily informed them that they smelled like it too, and then for a long time they were crushed up in each others' arms and nobody said anything until they'd all stopped crying. Which took a while. 

They tried not to talk about the way things had been. The last night, in the shadow of Insomnia, they did not talk at all. Not after Noct had spoken the words heavy on his heart. There were other ways of saying what they all wanted to say to one another, and speech was far too clumsy and crude a tool for such things. So they used other means. 

It was only once they were inside the boundaries of the wall that conversation became more common, and they were at the gates of the Crown City district before it was comfortable. None of them were quite able to pinpoint the change, but it wasn't long after Noctis put his entire armiger through a Nagarani's head and informed her, in no uncertain terms, to _Get the fuck out of my city._

The outburst of anger and profanity was so genuine that it broke whatever seal had held them silent, and their voices echoed in the ruined streets as they made their way to the Citadel. 

"I used to go here for lunch all the time, that place had the best noodles--" 

"Ugh, wasn't that the arcade where you could never get on the Ehrgeiz machine? Maybe we'd have a shot at it now--" 

"No way, dude, there's probably _still_ a line--" 

"Gladio, if you see a sign for Morrid's Coffee, just don't tell me. I might not be strong enough to bear it."

It cushioned the terrible blow of seeing their city in its current state, it dulled the unavoidable knowledge of why they were there. The chatter had become so ordinary that when Noct said Prompto's name, at first he thought it was just going to be another quip. Noct's somber expression said otherwise.

"Prompto. I want you to do something for me." 

Prompto had been leaning back over a twisted bit of sidewalk railing, stretching a sore place out of his back. He'd had a hard landing in their last fight. Ignis and Gladio were a few yards ahead, attempting to determine the stability of the rubble blocking the road. If they couldn't pass it, they'd have to cut through the subway again. Prompto wet his lips, his throat suddenly dry. "Anything. Name it." 

Noct stepped up closer, took Prompto by the shoulders. For a moment he only looked at Prompto's face. Then he took a deep breath and said, "Shave. That. Thing. Off." 

"Wha--aha!" Prompto was startled into a burst of laughter, and it rang in the empty park like an explosion of blossoms appearing suddenly in the dead flowerbeds. It lasted for several seconds until Prompto switched it off abruptly, and looked his king right in the eye. "No." 

"Oh, come on!" Noct said, as though Prompto had refused to let him have some of his fries. "You said _anything_!" 

"I thought you were going to ask for a blowjob!" Prompto answered. "Or to have your ashes taken to the summit of Mt. Ravatogh or something! But no go." He put a protective hand over his chin. "It took me like six months to do this." 

Noct narrowed his eyes. "It'd take six seconds to get rid of it," he said, ominous. "And you have to sleep eventually." 

"Ha." Prompto pointed to his nose. "You think this is the face of a man who's slept a night through once in ten years? Cos it isn't. I'd have a bead on you before you got near me." 

"Sounds like a challenge." Noct folded his arms. "I'll just have to find Gladio's old clippers." 

"He ruined them on a cactuar years ago, don't you remember?" 

"No. But you should lose it. Seriously, it looks ridiculous." 

Prompto snorted, waving a hand at Noct's hair and beard. "This from the man who looks like a defunct rock star who went on a reunion tour when he should have gone into rehab." 

Noct spread his arms. "Prompto, this _is_ a reunion tour." 

"Yeah, the final one." Prompto hadn't meant to say it. It was like the sharp end of his laughter earlier, only worse. For the first time since entering Insomnia they let the fear and the sorrow show in their faces, so each could see it on the other. "Don't give me that look," Prompto said softly. "You know we know." 

Noct closed his eyes, and nodded. "Yeah. I know." 

"Whatever we--" Prompto began, and then crunched his eyebrows together, his mouth a tight line as the agonizing moment stretched out between them, and as he struggled with what he wanted to say. "I'm not sorry," Prompto managed at last. "Not for anything that's been or that's coming. I'm just sorry about one thing, and that's that we didn't have more--" He choked on the last word, unable to get it out, but Noct had it for him. 

"...Time." 

"Don't." Prompto said, reaching out before Noct could put an arm around him. "Don't hug me now, Noct, or I won't be able to stand it. I swear to god I'll hit you over the head with a frying pan and I'll take us both as far from this fucking city as we can go before you wake up. It's all I got just to keep walking, so--" 

"Me, too," Noct admitted, with a terse smile. "There is one thing I want you to do for me, though. And it's not your stupid beard." 

Prompto swallowed hard. He hoped Noct wasn't going to ask what Prompto thought he might, because it was a promise Prompto didn't think he'd be able to keep. 

But Noct didn't ask Prompto to live for them both. Instead he just said, "Walk with me." 

Prompto let out a breath, and smiled at his best friend, at his king. "Always." 

Ignis called back to them that they had found a place to cross, and Noct went, and Prompto met his stride. They all four were on their way to the Citadel gates before Noct turned to Prompto and asked, with all the gravitas of the kings of Lucis behind the question: "Where would you even _get_ a frying pan?"


	8. Requiem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _A downtown window flushed with light_   
>  _and faces of the dead at five_   
>  _I see her martyr's silent eyes_   
>  _petition the drivers as we pass by_

All was quiet as the sun rose over the great city of Insomnia. The rightful king was on his throne; his loyal knights guarded the Citadel doors. In the sleepless city of Lucis, there was sleep at last. 

One woman walked the empty streets, her eyes shut, her smile serene. She was a Goddess, and she had come to see the end of her long work. But she was not the first to arrive. An old man awaited her at the Citadel gates, his back bent with age, leaning heavily upon a staff of gnarled wood. When he looked up and saw her, his eyes flashed under his grey brows like lightning in a distant thundercloud. 

"Hello, my dear. Come to see the ruin we have wrought?" He looked out over the courtyard, as the dawn's light crept cautiously over the broken cobblestones for the first time in a decade. "Look upon it long and hard, then. You will not see its like again. I pray not, at least." 

"They are all here?" Shiva asked, though she could see it for herself. In the still-smoking wreckage left by fallen Daemons, at the bottom of the Citadel steps: three pitiful figures in black strewn at the bottom of the stairs like toppled tin soldiers. 

"Where else would they be?" Ramuh's staff echoed through the empty city as he crossed the courtyard. "Come. Let us pay our respects." 

Shiva had seen many dead men in her long existence. More of them than she could count or recall, any more than a human might know the number of sparrows to fly over his head in a whole lifetime. But these three troubled her, troubled her far more than she felt they should, and she would be a long time in forgetting their still faces. In their splayed limbs and spilled blood she could read their last struggle, could see the moment they knew their king was dead, and went to join him. 

They were not far from each other, and all had fallen with their weapons in hand, their backs to the gate and to the king they guarded. Prompto lay a little distance from the others, one hand outflung as though to reach them. A bright explosion of color was all around him, photographs that slipped past his face in the rising breeze. Ignis' glasses were shattered, his eyes open on the light of a morning that he had won, but would never see. A Phoenix Plume was caught between Gladio's fingers, and it shone in the growing day, but it was nothing more than a pretty little charm fancied by children. He had pulled it out to save them. It had done nothing, and he knew. They had all known, all along. 

"Tears, dear one?" Ramuh looked at Shiva kindly, as little droplets of ice froze on her face with a sound like music. "It has been centuries. Not since the Betrayer broke your heart. They would be honored." 

"Would they?" Shiva brushed her hands over her eyes. "I am not so sure, Grandfather." She bent down and picked up a handful of the pictures. They were out of order, a linear journey jumbled into single, unconnected moments. A mountain, a shoreline. A young man on a pier. Someone asleep, someone laughing. They could have been anyone's pictures, anyone's life, and the sight of them would not pain her so. But because she knew, it hurt. Hurt deep and to the frozen heart of her, and she found it distressing. Perhaps she had been too long among mortals. Perhaps she had started to think too much like them. 

"Ahhh," Ramuh sighed, looking over her shoulder. "My. What a sunset. I look forward to having them again. Ohoh! That's a good one, too. Big fish. I remember that." 

Shiva let the pictures fall from her hand, shaking her head. "Human lives are so small, so brief. More often than not they end in feeble regret, a long opportunity wasted day by day into nothing. Do they not see?" She turned to Ramuh as though he would agree with her, and perhaps help her convince herself, though he only listened attentively and kept his own council, looking down at the smiling faces in the strewn photographs. "Look at all they have accomplished, and now their souls are free of the misery of flesh. Most humans have only a scant century of daily toil and petty ordeals, but they had instead a great purpose, a central place in a grand design. Is that not a gift?" Her face, normally so unmoved, was ruffled with a frown. "Luna always understood this. And yet--even now, I feel them grieving. All of them still yearn to go in his place, to take the blows for him. So stubbornly they refuse to let go of their mortal lives. Are a few extra years so dear?" 

"You know already it is not only the loss of years. Their pain was being unable to spare their king his pain. Their fear was the fear of being parted at the end." 

Shiva thought very hard about this. 

"Human fears are small things that they allow to consume them." It was another voice that answered Ramuh, a voice like the soft hush of waves on a shore. 

"Levia, my dear!" Ramuh said, smiling in his beard as he turned to greet her. "What a rare treat to see you like this." 

Leviathan did not often bother with human guise, as she found it beneath her, but her vast coils could not be contained by the citadel walls. When she wore a mortal form, it was that of a tall, dark woman, her figure generous, her eyes cold and colorless as water. Her hair fell in great ropes of blue and black to her feet, and her shimmering gown lapped gently on the pavement. She paid no heed to Ramuh's greeting, haughty as always, but knelt down beside Ignis' body and regarded his scarred face with great interest. 

"Your careless fault," Shiva breathed, and a little frosty puff of anger escaped between her lips. "If you had controlled your temper--" 

"What were you saying, so grandly, about mortals having a great purpose?" Leviathan did not bother to look at Shiva, but instead lifted Ignis' face in her hands, running a caressing fingertip over his scar. "I owe you no explanation, cold one. But for the old man, I will say something. This one--" She tapped one of Ignis' uniform buttons, "had become a bit too arrogant in his skills. The others, too complacent in their dependency upon him. Had it continued, they would not have been strong enough to endure what was to come. All had to bear an equal weight." At last Leviathan looked at Shiva, and Shiva was the first to turn away. "Yes. You know I speak truth. Just as there is strength in knowing the weaknesses of those you love; there is power in knowing your own. And look." She smiled down at Ignis, showing her shark-like teeth. "Look how strong he became. And yet how humble. How beautiful it made him." She bent her head and pressed a kiss over Ignis' scarred eye. "I took nothing away from them. They were my beloved children. And like a a good mother, I showed them how to survive. Together." 

"You've always had strange tastes." Shiva did not much care for her element in its liquid form. It was too wild, too unreliable. It rotted things away instead of preserving them.

"The others are within," Leviathan said, and gathered Ignis' body up in her arms as though he weighed less than a bit of froth on her shores. "Bring them. Let us finish this." 

Bahamut and Titan were waiting in the throne room; Titan drawn down to a fraction of his usual height, perhaps only double that of a human, and Bahamut impervious in his gleaming armor, a dragon's jaws framing his masked face. Above them, on the dais, Noctis Lucis Caelum was on his throne, pinned to it with his father's sword through his heart, his blood turning the velvet upholstery a richer black. 

"You are late," Titan said, in a voice like falling boulders. 

"Why have you brought those?" Bahamut asked, armor clinking as he tilted his head to the bodies the other Astrals carried. "They are not needed anymore." 

"They should all be together," Shiva said, and floated up to the throne to leave Prompto there seated at his King's feet, his head against Noct's knee. 

"You act like mortals," Bahamut said, with a scoffing laugh, but Ramuh's glare silenced him as the old man--with a great strength belied by his mortal disguise--laid Gladio down by his king's left side, like a shield ready to hand. Leviathan placed Ignis on his right, in the place of a trusted advisor, and swept a hand over his face to close his eyes. 

"You arrange a fine display of charnel for their friends to find," Bahamut said. "T'would be better to do otherwise. The bouquet is pretty now, sisters, but the blooms will fade fast." 

"They shall never fade," Shiva said, and bent down to kiss Noct's blood-spattered cheek. Frost bloomed on the spot and spread over him, over the sword, over the throne, over them all. In a few moments they were encased in a crystalline flower of ice, clear as water, that would not melt through a thousand years of fire. The eternal king of Lucis and his Knights, enthroned forevermore beneath the crystal. "Here they may rest together, until the end of all worlds." 

Bahamut nodded his approval, and his mantle swirled around him like the night sky as he turned. "Come, brothers and sisters. We must go--" 

"And did any of you bother asking if that's what they even _wanted_?" 

The shrill voice from the throne brought all of them to a halt and Bahamut spun on his heel, his voice terrible, his eyes aflame. "Who dares to so address us? Who dares speak scorn before the Six?" 

A small, pale face appeared above the frozen throne, crowned by an absurdly long pair of ears. "There are _five_ of you," Carbuncle said, and there was still plenty of cheek in his observation. 

Titan heaved a dusty sigh. "Little one. You have served long and well, but your task is done. The house of Caelum--" 

"The house of Caelum only ever did _everything you wanted_." The small creature's voice was nothing more than a wordless yip of anger and pain, but those there to hear it understood its language and its meaning all too clearly. "And this! _This!_ " Carbuncle jumped down from the throne and would have landed in Noct's lap, but the ice was steep and slick, and instead he skidded to the bottom of the dais, tumbling tail over ears to land at the edge of Ramuh's robe. "This is what it brought them!" 

"They had power unimaginable for generations," Bahamut said, "which they used--" 

"Which they used to protect people you eventually let die anyway," Carbuncle retorted. "Did it help any of them? The Power? The Glory? No. It only helped _you_." 

"Shh!" Shiva gave the fox a warning look, but Carbuncle was bereft, and would not be stopped. He barreled on, relentless. 

"Chosen king! Chosen destiny! Chosen by who? By _you_. And for what? Something you didn't have the nerve to do for yourselves. He'd have been right to spit in your eye and tell you to solve your own problems!" Carbuncle looked mournfully back up at the throne, and his nose trembled. "And I wish he _had_." 

"You were guardian of the family for a long time," Ramuh said, reaching down. "Naturally, you're a bit upset, but I promise--" 

"I've seen what comes of your promises." Carbuncle nipped at the old man's fingers, and skidded out Ramuh's reach. "Don't patronize me. A bit upset? I'll give you a bit of--" He broke off, one ear twitching. A sound vibrated in the still air of the fallen city, a purring rumble that shimmered in the air. Carbuncle gave the Astrals a penetrating look with his black eyes, and his tone changed to something more conciliatory. "Would you like to see what _a bit of upset_ looks like?" Carbuncle bounded underneath the stairs, and whisked his tail out of sight. "Then wait. And watch." 

 

Iris Amicitia took the main stairs of the Citadel two at a time, her face stern, her eyes steady. It was not that she hadn't seen the blood on the stone steps below her. It was only that she would not allow herself to be led by it down some conjectural path to an uncertain conclusion. Not until she had better evidence, one way or another. She was a daughter of the house of the King's Shield. She was the only one of all the hunters to have earned the moniker of _Daemon-slayer_ , and she had more of them to her credit than anyone else, even her brother. Mere blood, no matter its quantity or portent, was not enough to make her weep. No matter how beautiful and red it was in the light of a new day. No matter what her heart already knew, and had known from the moment the sun rose that day. 

"Hey--hey wait, hold up, Sugardoll!" Cindy's bootsteps rang in the vacant palace as she hurried to catch up to Iris, and Aranea, who had been obliged to tend to the dropship controls before she disembarked, was a further twenty paces behind. "Where're you running off to? Ain't no point comin' with ya if you don't let us, y'know, come with ya." 

"Then don't slow me down," Iris said, and jabbed the elevator button. Power was intermittent in the city; but the Citadel seemed to have more than anywhere else. The elevator's bell made a strangled little ding as the doors opened, and Iris pressed the button for the upper levels, but Cindy held them open until Aranea could join them. 

"Hey, sorry to hold you up," the dragoon said, sidling into the elevator with her usual sarcastic grace. "Didn't know you had a _date_ or anything." 

Cindy clicked her tongue at Aranea. "Don't you be givin' her a hard time, Raney. I reckon she's gonna have--" Cindy broke off abruptly, and spent a long moment adjusting her hat. "It's just, we don't know how we're gonna find anything. Ain't no need to--" 

"There ain't no need to baby me, either," Iris cut her off, with an echo of Cindy's drawl that was as fond as it was exasperated. "Let's be realistic, Cin. Last night we had the worst Daemon attacks we've seen in years, like they knew something was happening. And then the sun came up, but nobody's gotten a call from anyone here. I know... what it means." Iris looked down at her hands. There was still blood on them, and it was Cor's. "...We all know what it means." 

Aranea gently polished a bit of the gold elevator trim with her gloved thumb. "Yeah," she said. "I guess we do." 

"So please let me just _see_ them," Iris breathed, in a prayer to herself, to the Astrals, or to will the elevator to go faster. "Because I can't stand--" 

The doors dinged open on the antechamber of the throne room, and Iris was out of them before they had drawn back all the way. She could not maintain her reserved stride as she crossed the somber room, with its depressingly regimented gravel and brooding paintings, and she broke into a sprint and flung herself on the heavy doors of the throne room with something like a sob. 

"You better catch her up," Cindy said to Aranea. "She don't need t'be--" 

"Dammit, too late." Aranea vaulted over the furnishings and still landed at the doors several steps behind Iris, who was already standing alone in the throne room, her hands to her mouth. 

It was a scene of sorrow and of wonder, and though Iris had expected many things, this was not one of them. The throne of the Kings of Lucis encased in ice--and it must be ice, for the room was so cold--and Noct on it with his friends beside him, his father's sword through his heart. The dome of the throne room was gone, ruined walls flung open to the sky, and morning sunlight fell fully on the chamber. It reflected on the crystal and the ice, filling the air with a thousand fractured beams of light, illuminating the peaceful faces of the bodies entombed in the Glacian's unmelting embrace. 

Iris did not faint and she did not fall, but she swayed a moment before Aranea caught her, and with a broken noise she let herself cry at last. 

"I knew it," she gasped, her face in her hands. "Oh, I knew it would be Noct, and Gladdy's such a big idiot it would be him too, but all of them--oh no." She could not say anything else but "Oh no," for some time, and Aranea held her while she did, and Cindy ran a hand over Iris' carefully-braided hair. 

"Oh darlin, darlin. I sure am so sorry." Cindy looked around the room, and at Aranea, and they shared a brief glance of understanding as Cindy gently patted the black Crownsguard emblem on the back of Iris' jacket. "You just cry for you, it's all right. But don't you cry for those brave boys, sugar. You know they'll be happier together than some here and some gone, don'tcha? None of 'em ever wanted that." 

Aranea tilted her head at the throne, and gave Cindy a tight smile. Though she was commonly assumed to be made of pure adamantium, Aranea's eyes were too bright, her voice heavy. "You sorry now, Cin? Sorry you never gave that punk Prompto so much as the time of day?" 

Cindy put both hands on her hips in annoyance. "And what would that boy have done with it? My papaw never raised no idiots, and only an idiot would think for a minute that I'd ever come near his prince in his heart. Woulda wasted both our time. Besides, I tried to break it to him real gentle-like that I like boys better as friends, but he never caught my meanin'." She watched the light pass over Prompto's face for a minute, and then she turned away, and put her arm around Iris' shoulders. "Iris, honey. Why don't you go sit down out there a minute, it's coldern' a well-digger's ass in here. Raney'll sit with you, and when you've had a good cry awhile you just come back in here, and then you can take as long as you want, all right?" Cindy looked up at Aranea, and passed her a flask from the pocket of her jacket. "Get her a drink, Raney, sweet Shiva." 

"C'mon, Daemon-slayer," Aranea said, "I know nothing puts me right like a good howl, so better get it out now." Iris let herself be led from the room to sit on one of the leather couches in the antechamber, and to let the worst of the grief wash over her. The doors of the throne room closed softly behind them, and Cindy Aurum stood a long time at the bottom of the steps to the throne, and though she grieved, she did not cry. 

It was something that was actually quite difficult for one of her kind to do. 

A pair of wings unfurled in the light of the throne room, wings of gold and crimson and green, and Cindy's old grease-smeared jacket and slouching boots melted away. Her hair fell down in a feathered cascade, down to the shining talons on her feet. Only her face remained the same, as she turned to face the Astrals there with her, invisible to mortals. A long time, she had been Cindy Aurum. She was even happy to be so, though it had not always been easy. And after so many years, some parts of the disguise were hard to shed. Like the accent. 

"Well well well," she said, in Cindy's best gas-station drawl. "Ain't this just a family reunion." 

"Siren," Leviathan said, stepping out of the shadows with her arms outstretched. "Welcome. The sun has returned, child. It is a day for rejoicing. Be glad you are here to see it with us." 

The Messenger who had been Cid Sophiar's adopted granddaughter gave them a long, cool look, and Carbuncle poked his nose over the top of the throne again, black eyes intent on the scene. "Glad, huh?" Siren considered this a while. "Well. I'm something, anyway. Ain't seen y'all in one spot in a chocobo's age. Come to see the mess y'all made?" 

"The furry one has been regaling us with our sins for some time now," Bahamut said, his armor rattling as he shrugged. "Believing that one mortal's grief will somehow cause us to feel remorse for our actions, which were necessary for the greater good of all worlds, as well as for the mortals of this one." 

"Sure," Siren gave Carbuncle a glance, and folded her arms across her lush chest. "Well. Whatever lets ya'll sleep at night, like the mortals say." 

"You have a similar opinion, little parakeet?" Titan raised one ponderous brow at her. 

"Well since y'ask, it so happens I do." Siren walked slowly around the icy edge of Shiva's memorial. Her face was a flawless mask of serene beauty, as it could hardly be otherwise, but her wings shivered on her shoulders. 

"Do tell," Leviathan prompted, almost as frigid as Shiva. 

"A'right." Siren spread her colorful wings around her like a mantle. "I'll speak my piece. So ya'll listen up good, now." 

Bahamut snorted. "Do we have to listen to it in that idiotic dialect?" 

Ramuh tutted at him, and Bahamut subsided, unhappily.

"Now," Siren said, "I reckon I've lived with mortals off and on longer than any of y'all, and I'm just about the only one 'at stuck around 'em so long this whole past little while. It's a different view from down here on the ground, I tell ya. Not like what you get from up there," she waved one elegant hand to indicate the planes beyond the mortal one, where the Astrals dwelt. "With ever'thin all small like little bits o' clockwork. And when you're that far out all you care about is how it ticks along. Take out a cog, swap out a part, chuck the whole thing an' start over--it don't matter none. But I tell you what, when you get down eye-to-eye with those cogs and parts, that's another tune. You get to knowin' how they think and feel, and how much life they cram inta their little bit a'time. They ain't so different from us. And I gotta say, an' maybe it's real insubordinate-like, but these boys didn't deserve how y'all treated 'em. Makin' 'em pay their blood for our troubles, tyin' 'em up to a fate some ancestor set 'em up for, not even givin' them one sunrise t'gether after all this time." Her eyes went to Prompto's, and her feathered lashes lowered to loose one tear down her impossibly perfect face. "It ain't right. It just... it ain't right a'tall." 

Carbuncle hopped down from his perch atop the throne and, with a moment's hesitation to make up his mind, at last lay his head down across Siren's feet. He paid no mind to her shining talons, which could have torn him to pieces in an instant, and instead pressed himself in commiseration against her ankles. Siren and Carbuncle had been immortal enemies since an age when mankind still worshiped fire and feared thunder, but in this, they were in perfect accord, and would be thereafter. The love between the mortals in their care had thawed their old enmity, and though they could not help their opposite natures, they never fought again. 

"Siren. Do you speak as well for Pandemona?" Bahamut spared a glance towards the antechamber door of the throne room. Beyond it, the woman who called herself Aranea Highwind sat comforting Iris, who as yet had no idea of her companions' true nature. Nor did she know what great protection she had been under for years--though she was skilled enough that she had not often needed it. "Is this also what she has seen?" 

"I reckon so," Siren said. "Y'all put us here t'observe, and this is what we done observed. Raney--I mean, Pandy watched the Empire and I been watching 'round here, but it's all the same. People is People and sure y'get a bad egg now an' again, but they ain't so foolish or cheap as y'all makin' 'em out to be." 

"Your observations have weight," Bahamut admitted, after a thoughtful pause. 

"Hey!" Carbuncle's fur bristled all over. "What about _my_ observations?" 

"They are worth consideration as well," Ramuh answered. " _Small_ consideration, but consideration all the same. I never thought I would see the day that a rabbit could talk so much sense." 

Carbuncle's ears went flat along his back. "I'm a _fox_." 

"You are a _pest_ ," Shiva said, but she was smiling. "And there is truth in your words, as well as Siren's. Still." Her smile faded. "What is to be done? Those who are dead are still dead; and that truth was once spoken by these children themselves." 

Carbuncle snorted derisively. "Big talk for a goddess whose corpse lies in Gralea. And yet here you are, happy as clams and damn well-pleased with yourselves. All five of you, plus the one you came to punish, whose debts to you and Eos are steep. You live, you exist. Why can't they?" 

"Because we are not like the mortals of whom you are so fond." Leviathan's great ropes of hair flowed around her like a restless tide. "We are more than they are, and it takes more to kill us." 

"That's what I'm saying," Carbuncle yipped. "You can bend time and break the stars. You can forge worlds and rend the fabric of the universe for your own pleasure, and you say you can't at least give these souls a proper reward? If so, you're liars."

"The reward has already been granted," Titan rumbled. "They shall have the peace of Paradise as all souls--" 

"Peace of Paradise!" Carbuncle danced a circle of agitation around Siren's ankles. "Listen to you! Talking about mortals as if you ever knew their hearts! Peace of Paradise indeed. What good is that to them? They never wanted it. They want so little, and always have." He looked up at Noct on the throne--his head bowed in sacrifice over the sword through his heart--and blinked away tears from his great eyes. They fell on the black marble floor as tiny perfect diamonds, each one a gem beyond price. "So very, very little. Only their own lives. An open road. A far horizon. Each other." Carbuncle turned his yearning face towards the Astrals. "Is that so difficult to give them? If you can't," Carbuncle sobbed, inconsolable in his grief, "then you've no right to let the mortals call you gods."

The Astrals looked at each other a long moment, as Siren bent down and gathered the pitifully weeping fox into her arms, petting his quivering ears, but he would not be consoled or quieted. 

"And if you don't, I'll turn heretic and tell them the truth of you, and none of them will ever do your bidding again. I'll be a worse thorn in your side than Ifrit and a whole army of Ardyns. I'll--" 

" _Enough._ " Ramuh's word was echoed by a retort of thunder from the clear sky above. "What would you have us do, little tyrant?"

Carbuncle scrubbed his snout on one paw, and sniffled. "...Give them an Eos of their own." 

"Ha!" Bahamut's laugh was utterly without mirth. "Madness." 

"So you can't do it?" Carbuncle drew back his black lips, showing a row of needle-sharp white teeth. "Fine. What shall I tell the mortals? That you wear a mask because you're so ugly? That Leviathan's a glorified carp and Shiva hasn't the sense to dress for the weather?" 

"How _dare_ you--" Leviathan reared back, her pale eyes baleful, and Siren folded her wings around the fox to shield him from her rage, though she would not last long against her mistress. 

"Now now, my dear Leviathan," Ramuh lowered his staff between them. "He has a point. And a funny one! Dress for the weather. Hoho!" 

Titan groaned. "You have a mortal's poor sense of humor. Both of you." 

"But to continue," Ramuh went on, meditatively stroking his beard. "We cannot bring them back here. Those who are dead are dead after all--in this world. But worlds are plentiful; there are many in our care. Could we not use another? Or even make one?" There was a murmur from the other Astrals, and Carbuncle cautiously poked his nose out between Siren's pinfeathers. "Countless mortals have been lost in this long struggle," Ramuh continued, now that he had their interest. "And many of those gave their lives expressly to work our will. It cannot be denied that this great thing could not have been accomplished without them, and it is right that theirs should be a special destiny. They could be the sparks of a wholly new fire." He held out a gnarled hand, and within it already stars and galaxies began to swirl, coalescing around each other. "It has been long since we lent our hands to creation in lieu of destruction. Call it an experiment--so we may see what mortal lives are like without our direct interference." 

"I need not go to that effort, I know full well." Bahamut folded his armored arms. "Wasteful wandering, without purpose." 

Shiva put her hand on his breastplate, and a fine filigree of frost spread from her fingertips over the ancient metal. "Dearest Dragon," she purred. "Have you never heard the mortals say that getting there is half the fun?" 

Bahamut lowered his visor, and his voice had an uncomfortable echo in his helmet. "...I... have not. But it is a very mortal thing to say." 

"What is a paradise that has the same pains and troubles of this life?" Leviathan shook her heavy head. "Who would choose such a thing, rather than to sleep in contentment among the stars? I will never understand mortals." 

"She _admits_ it, at least," Carbuncle grumbled. 

"There is a difference between the troubles you choose and the troubles that are thrust on you by destiny," Titan said, as he turned his stony face to his opposite number. "Lady Leviathan. I should be pleased to once again carve hollows and furrows for you to fill with your finest streams and seas. And I shall raise mountains to frame your lakes, as best fits your perfect mirrors of the sky. Would that not be a fine thing?" 

Leviathan, for all her changeable moods, was always extremely weak to flattery. "...Well. Perhaps it might be of some _small_ interest. A mere diversion, to pass a bit of time." 

"We shall take some creatures from here and there," Ramuh said, poking the stars around in his hand. "They will want some they know, and some that are new to them, and ohoho, this is fun, it has been too long--" 

"Oh!" Carbuncle rested both paws on Siren's wing, back feet wriggling in her grasp. "Oh! Oh! There have to be chocobos!" 

"Y'all'll do it?" Siren asked, having not dared to hope until now. "I know some folks'll do good to join 'em." Her voice went soft and sad. "...Lotsa good folks. Some we... we just lost." She patted Carbuncle to comfort herself, not him, and her voice was only for her and for an old man past hearing. "He saw the sun come up, though. It's what he wanted." 

"We will grant this boon," Bahamut said, very grave as always. "But know this: we shall not intervene after, for good or for ill. We will give them what they need to begin, and from there, the path they make is their own." 

"They're gonna do it!" Carbuncle yipped and wriggled with happiness like a puppy in Siren's arms, until she could not help but smile at him. 

"In that case, I'mma go tell Pandy, and... I reckon we ought to let on a little to Iris about things, and about us. She's gonna have a lot to do puttin' stuff back together here, and it sure will be a long row to hoe. Is it all right if we stick around an' help her out a bit? I know Pandy'd like that, and I sure would too." 

"This world is still in great need of our aid as well," Shiva said, as the other Astrals were already engaged in a cheerful argument about the best ways of placing continents. "You two may stay and do all you can to help. I will attend to the rest here." She curled one beckoning finger at Carbuncle. "As for you, little one. You come with me. I have a job for you."


	9. Sunrise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of this story, and the beginning of all the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _And maybe I want to run away from it all. But living in the village with everyone fills me with joy. The joy of living with them far outweighs the fear of death. Isn't it the same for you? **Traveling with your friends gives your life meaning.**_  
>  -Mr. 288, FFIX

"Anybody dead?" Gladio asked. There was an exasperated pause in the throne room as the other three, including Ignis, shot him the look he so rightly deserved. Ignis' glare was no less potent for having been a decade out of use; in fact it seemed like the time off had only honed his skill. 

" _Yes_ ," Noct said, and flung out both hands in the direction of the scene they'd found in front of them: their own bodies slumped on and around the throne, sealed up in a shared tomb of ice. "What kind of a--yes. Someone's dead. _All of us are dead, Gladio_."

"I know, I know," Gladio laughed, wiping at his eyes. "I just had to ask. That was priceless! Your faces! Man. Wish I had a picture." 

"Well it's not what I have to ask," Noct continued, furious. "Which is what the _hell_ are you three doing here? Didn't I say--" 

"I don't _feel_ dead," Prompto said, squishing his face around experimentally before reaching out to test his grip on someone else. "Noct doesn't feel dead, either." 

"Hey!" Noct wriggled away from Prompto's fingers. It was not so long ago that he'd taken a dozen blades to the chest, and he was still feeling a little protective of himself. He was also every bit as ticklish dead as he'd ever been alive, and he wasn't done being mad at them. 

"Still," Prompto went on, peering with morbid interest at his own still corpse under the unmelting crystal of Shiva's ice. "It's pretty hard to argue with _that_ , isn't it? _Yikes_. Seriously though, if I had known, I would have done something better with my hair." 

"No chance of that now," Gladio answered. "It's gonna be a chocobo-butt for all eternity." 

"It _does not--_ " 

"...So that's what it looked like," Ignis said quietly, ten steps up on the dais, staring down at the livid pattern of his scar. "...I always wondered." On his face now--the one not frozen in death--there was only an echo of the disfiguring mark, a paler place on his skin as though from some childhood injury. It was the same for all of them, looking at their reflections in the ice, seeing how they differed from the faces they left behind. The years they had earned remained, but not the pain. Prompto no longer had the weariness of a man who had slept poorly for a decade and never once saw the sun in that time. Noct's premature age had left his face, wiping all the silver from his hair and taking his beard with it, leaving him--if not the boy who had left Insomnia--then at least the man who he might have become under a gentler destiny. Even Gladio's scars had faded, but not so much that he could no longer take pride in them. 

"You never listen to me." Noct said, turning away from his own figure on the throne. "This was my destiny. _You_ were supposed to--" 

"Live?" Gladio raised one eyebrow at his king. "While you died?" He made a derisive noise. "Hell, no. Do you even know what _King's Shield_ means?" 

"Yeah, right." Prompto made a face at Noct's glower, as unintimidated by it as he had ever been. "I had ten years without you. That was bad enough, even knowing you were going to come back. You think I'd want to do that again? With you dead for good? Uh, no. Sorry. Not happening." 

"Forgive us our disobedience," Ignis said, as he removed his sunglasses. After all, for a blind man in a world without sunlight, they were more to spare others the sight of his eyes than anything else. They vanished as soon as they fell from his hand, and there was a pair of his old frames waiting in the breast pocket of his uniform vest. He made a contented noise as he put them on, as at a lingering itch finally scratched. "But if you ever entertained the notion that we would not gladly die with you, you did so in error. And indeed, we had made up our minds to do so long ago." 

"Pretty sure that's what we said to your dad when we left," Gladio put in. 

"But--" Noctis began. 

"Aaannk," Prompto said, cutting him off. "I don't have to listen to this. King or no, man. It's my afterlife too, and I'm not gonna." He stuck his fingers in his ears and sang, "La la la, not listening to Noct griping cos he's not all alone and dead by himself, as if he really wanted to be cos that would suck, he's just being a giant bitch as usual, la la la." 

_You are not dead. Not here._

It was a voice that could penetrate barriers far greater than Prompto's stuffed ears, and he jumped as they all turned to face the dais again. Only the throne of Lucis was empty now, and the ice and all it had held was gone. Hovering under the unbroken dome of the throne room was the Crystal, and it shed its gentle light on walls and windows that were untouched by war, soaring and perfect to the very sky. 

"Greetings, Last King of Lucis," Shiva said, floating in the empty air before the crystal, her frost-touched mantle sparkling in its light. "And farewell, First King of... well. Whatever name you choose to call this place." 

"This place?" Noct echoed, in some confusion. Even after ten years dreaming in their realm, he sometimes still found the ways and speech of Astrals hard to follow. "What do you mean? Isn't this... Lucis?" 

"It will be whatever you wish it to be," Shiva said, spreading out her arms and spinning slowly as she rose through the air. "Though we thought it best to give you a beginning you would know. Those you meet here will find it safe and familiar. A good place to set out from, to build up, to return to. It is a needful thing for mortals to have a place to call home, where all roads both begin and end." 

"I don't understand," Noct said, his eyebrows drawn together. "Aren't we dead?" 

"In one story," Shiva said, as though this could explain everything. "Yes. And there you will be mourned and missed. But in this story, your lives have barely begun. Beyond these city gates is a new world, with new wonders yet unseen and unnamed. Go into it, and find your own tales and your own tellings, without the burdens of death and destiny. This is the reward for those who have laid down their lives in service to the stars." 

"So, game clear, new game," Gladio said, reducing Shiva's fanciful speech, as delicate and intricate as hoarfrost, into a metaphor he liked better. "And a one-up. Basically." 

"No wonder I feel so not... ethereal," Prompto said, and reached out to pinch Ignis to make sure he wasn't the only one. Ignis, without a glance, caught his hand halfway and Prompto's yelp of pain at his twisted fingers was enough to convince all of them. "OW! Ah, yeah. Okay. That's real." 

"Well well well," Ignis said, letting him go. "We're not dead, and Prompto's still a prat. All's well that ends well, eh? Bad luck, Noct. No long nap for you." 

"I think one ten-year nap was enough to do me a while." Noct turned to Shiva in bewilderment. "But... why?" 

"We thought you worthy," Shiva said, as though it had been the plan all along. And perhaps it had been; for no Astral--much less five of them--would ever truly let herself be bossed around by a tiny green fox. At least, none of them would ever admit that they had. "Worthy enough for a new beginning. It is a gamble you have been given, make no mistake. And the risk is great as well as the reward. As you have the freedom to make your own paradise, you likewise have the freedom to make your own misery. It is up to you where the path may lead; for we will no longer walk among you to guide you, and the powers of your ancestors cannot come to your aid. The crystal we have given is not that of Lucis, and its magic is meant to aid you, but it will win no wars, and incite no conquest. Whatever you build or destroy, you will do with your own hands. " She turned her closed eyes and smiling face to Prompto. "And I shall not ruin your pictures again. Forgive me, but I loved to be near you all and watch over you on your journey." 

Prompto was suddenly very nervous. "Yeah, it's no problem, I mean... You weren't watching... all the time... were you?" 

Shiva's smile remained, serene and unassailable, while she nodded. 

The blood quickly rose in Prompto's face. "Ooooh yeah. That's uh. Wow. That's embarrassing." 

"There is no reason for that." Shiva lifted her head to look beyond them, as though she could see through closed eyes and castle walls to some horizon they did not yet know. "And now, the time has come for me to leave you. Rule kindly, young king. Rule well." 

"Wait." Noct scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to forcibly organize his scattered thoughts. "So, I'm not sure I understand--" 

"Your highness." 

They blinked, and in that distracted second, Shiva was gone. Time--that they had not realized was suspended--resumed its normal course. It was sometime not yet summer, on a day that might have been a Tuesday. Morning light streamed through the high windows of the throne room, mixing its ordinary light with the sleepy gleam of the crystal. It picked out motes of dust in the air and a bit of lint on the shoulder of Noct's suit, which Ignis immediately and out of old habit reached up and whisked away, even as they all turned to see who had spoken. 

A man stood at the door to the antechamber, a man in a Kingsglaive uniform. His epaulettes were trimmed in black fur, and his face was marked with the small tattoos of a Galahdian warrior. He had his hand to his chest in a bowed salute. They looked at him, and they looked at each other, in equal puzzlement. 

"Yes?" Noct said, when it was clear nothing would happen until he did. The Kingsglaive stood, and with a jolt Noct recognized him--the one illusory corpse of Ardyn's display that had so surprised him, being that of a man who was nearly a stranger to him. Noct fell over his name by blind luck, just as Ignis inhaled to help jog his King's memory. "Ulric, isn't it?" 

"Yes, sir," Nyx said. "Sorry to interrupt. But if you're ready to go, your father's sent the car for you. Cid said not to leave it idling too long." 

Noct stared at him for a long minute, a minute in which Nyx was obviously trying very hard not to smile at his king's confusion. In spite of his impeccable demeanor, it was pretty clear the man was enjoying himself. Noctis rallied his brain and his mouth together, and gave it his best go, with mixed results. "Mah--?" 

"Very good, Ulric," Ignis said, before Noct could kick off his new regime with a sound like a drunk dualhorn lost in a dust-storm. "Shall we, your highness?" 

The title seemed to jerk Noct back into the moment, surreal as the moment was. Or perhaps it was completely ordinary, and that in itself was what made it feel so strange. Noct hadn't known ordinary in a long, long time. "I guess. You guys ready?" 

"Hey, I'm good to go, whenever," Gladio said, with an easy shrug. "No point hangin' around here." 

"Got my camera, good to go," Prompto said, with a thumbs-up. 

"Tsk." Ignis tugged on the hem of his uniform jacket. "Of course we're ready. And since when have you ever bothered asking?" 

Noct opened his mouth and then bit back whatever he was going to say to them, as Nyx made a little cough into his hand to remind them that he was there. "Well," Noct said instead. "Let's go." 

"Sir," Nyx said, and opened the door to the anteroom and stepped out. The king and his retinue followed, all of them still braced for some tunnel of white light and gilded gates. But outside the throne room was... the anteroom. As it had always been. All that was missing were the paintings, which had told the story of some other kingdom. Nyx strode briskly down the hall, hands tucked neatly in the small of his back, the very picture of a professional and bored military escort.

Noct couldn't stand it any longer, and quickened his stride to walk alongside Nyx. "You said... my father?" 

Nyx knew what Noct was asking. "Sorry, Sir. He says he'll see you when you get back, and you can have a talk then." Nyx lowered his voice. "He said he wouldn't want to bog you down with a lot of family business as soon as you arrived, but between you and me, I think he's going to enjoy not being king, and just hanging around with his friends down at the airship hangar." 

Noct had hoped the explanation would help. It didn't. "His... friends." 

"Yeah, they're here. Lot of people are, actually."

This was an undeniable fact. The Citadel of Lucis had always had the charm of a mausoleum, but it seemed to Noct that it was lighter and brighter than it had ever been. There were people everywhere, many in guard or glaive uniforms, some in the dress of the royal staff, a few civilians. All of them paused to acknowledge the king's retinue, and then went on their way, clearly on other errands of their own. 

"Did you say airship?!" Prompto sparkled like a lit firecracker.

"it's just a _hangar_ , Argentum. I understand the airship part's gonna take a while--" Nyx broke off to nod to a female Glaive who passed them, and she turned on her heel to call after him once the king and his retinue had gone by. 

"Hey, are we still on for dinner tonight?" 

Nyx grimaced without turning around. "I'm on duty, Crowe. "

"Okay, but Libertus said he'd meet us at eight if you--" 

" _Still. on. duty. Crowe._ "

"Geeze," Crowe rolled her eyes as she continued on in the opposite direction, her mutter still audible. "Some guys die for Lucis like _once_ and then they get all uptight." 

Nyx allowed himself a single, pained sigh. 

"Sooo, how long has everyone been here?" Gladio asked, hesitantly returning the wave of one of the 'Guard, a man he knew had died in a Daemon attack years ago. "Seems like you've got everything all set." 

"Oh, it's been a little while." Nyx lifted one shoulder. "It's hard to say, since everything... just started." He frowned, not much liking that explanation, but not having a better one to hand. "It's not my specialty, to be honest? This Astral Destiny business. I just hit things. Professionally. But I guess we've all just been... waiting." 

"Waiting?" Ignis prompted. "For?" 

Nyx gave them a smile as they reached the front reception hall of the Citadel. "For the last ones to die." 

Nobody had an answer to that, though Gladio might have looked a tiny bit pleased with himself.

"I'm still a little unclear on this whole concept," Prompto said finally, his voice creaky. "Are we sure this is okay?" 

"Prompto, as I recall you had trouble grasping the concept of _salt_." Ignis sniffed. Never let it be said he was one to forgive and forget. "Perhaps it's better for you not to think too hard about it." 

"There's one thing I do know," Noct said, and his frown was a bit dangerous. "If you've been waiting for us like you say, you sure are in a big hurry to hustle me out of here." 

"Oh," Nyx said, and pushed open the door of the main entrance, stepping out into the morning light to hold it open for the king to pass through, and saluting as he did so. "That's not my idea, sir." 

"Then who--" Noct began, but he never got the question out of his mouth. An explosion of noise met them at the doors, and for a second the sunshine blinded them all. It took a moment for Noct's disorientation to clear, and by the time it had, his arms were full of dogs. Big, happy, barking dogs, who --in spite of their mystical tendencies and good training--were still dogs, as all dogs are. And right now the most important thing in this or any world was to lick any bit of Noct they could get to. 

"Umbra! _Pryna_!" Noct looked at them in disbelief, buried his hands in their heavy, sun-warmed fur. He'd never felt anything so real. "How did you get here?" 

"Chibi!" Prompto said, and Pryna bounded out of Noct's lap to nuzzle the hand he held out to her. "You remember me, girl, don't you?" 

Ignis coughed, and Gladio toed Noct in the ass. "Hey. Noct." 

"Your highness," Ignis said, sounding pained. "Whenever you're done sitting on the steps and being slobbered on?" 

"What? I--" Noct lost the second sentence in so many minutes, only this time there was no getting the rest of this one back. Not as he stood and the dogs bounded past him to the bottom of the stairs, and he saw the woman waiting there, smiling up at them, one hand raised to shield her eyes from the light. She saw them see her, and she waved. Waiting just behind her, top down and the engine running, was the Regalia. 

"Is that--" Prompto began. 

"It is," Ignis said. 

"Missed that damn car," Gladio admitted, feeling everything else was obvious enough. 

" _Luna_ ," Noct breathed, and was rooted to the spot for a moment before Prompto reached out and swatted him across the ass to get him going. 

"Well, don't just stand there waiting for us all to die again, get down there." 

Noct took one uncertain step, and then a shudder of realization went through him, and he ran. Ran and cleared the steps in record time, ran until she was there and she was laughing and in his arms and her hair fell all around his face, and she said his name and his lungs were full of the scent of sylleblossoms and moonlight. 

"And to think he was worried about that kiss," Prompto said, back at the top of the steps. "Lookit'em. What a natural." He scrubbed one hand at his eye. "Damn. This afterlife air is pretty dry, isn't it?" He sniffed. "Makin' my eyes water." 

"You're not dead," Gladio reminded him. 

"But you will be if you wipe that snotty hand on my sleeve," Ignis warned, with an annoyed flare of his nostrils. 

"C'mon," Gladio said, starting down the steps. "He's waving at us. Let's go meet the missus." 

"Hello," Lunafreya said politely, as though they were only being introduced for the first time during some informal reception. "It's so very nice to meet you all at last." Her hair was braided simply and she was very smart in a white linen suit, like a courthouse bride, or one about to start on her honeymoon. Which, Prompto realized with a sudden pang, she probably was.

"I must apologize that we've kept you waiting," Ignis said, bowing flawlessly over Luna's hand. "It seems that Noct still has some ways to go in having kingly manners." 

Gladio's bow was somewhat less polished, and the most Prompto could manage to do was lift one hand in a weak wave, as his voice seemed to have grown wings and flown away. 

Luna glanced at Noct. "Just like you said," she laughed, "all of them." 

"Well," Ignis said, and for a moment it seemed even he was at a sudden loss for words. "Well. I... we should not keep the two of you. I'm sure you want to--" 

Noct shared a knowing look with Luna, whose smile and nod were discreetly minuscule, but still clear.

"What are you talking about?" Noct opened the passenger side doors of the Regalia. "The back seat fits three, you know." 

"It would be most unwise to venture out without any escort," Luna said, her voice both sweet and grave. "As we do not as yet know what lies beyond the gates. There may be dangers for which we are unprepared. I had hoped you would accompany us." 

"We'd better, since you two ain't even married yet," Gladio said, and cuffed Noct's shoulder hard enough to make him stagger. "Besides, you'd starve to death without Ignis. Noct could burn water." 

"Actually, Luna," Noct said, opening the other side and letting the dogs in, "let's leave them here." 

"Don't you dare even tease them like that," Luna said. "After all they've been through for you." She gave Prompto a smile that melted his heart like warm butter. "Prompto? I don't suppose you remember, but I--" 

"YousentmealetterIreadeverysingledayforthreeyears," Prompto said, and then managed to get in a gasp of air. "I mean, um. Yes. I remember." 

"Then may I ask you to keep an eye on Pryna? Umbra is fine up front with me, but Pryna's not used to riding in open cars." 

"On it!" Prompto scooted into the back seat after Gladio, and patted his lap. "C'mere, girl!" 

"Noct," Ignis said, as he reached forward to close Noct's door as well as his own, "I must advise caution. We don't know what's out there. Might I stress that we are still _mortal_ in this world, and I've no intentions of dying twice today." 

"Are you talking smack about my driving?" Noct asked, adjusting all the Regalia's mirrors, which were already where he wanted them. 

"No," Ignis retorted. "I am pleading for my _life_." 

"Relax," Noct said, in a tone that somehow was not very reassuring, "I'm fine." 

"It has been ten years since you drove," Prompto reminded Noct, while Pryna nearly fell out of his lap in her wriggling attempts to lick his hair into order.

"Ignis was _blind_ for ten years, I don't see you telling him not to _walk_." 

"Were you really?" Luna said, with great interest. "And still you fought with the others? That's quite remarkable. And it's true that you cook, as well? Noct is so fortunate to have you. "

"Erum," Ignis said, and none of them had ever seen him go that shade of carnation pink before. "I-well. It's ...nothing special." 

"Fatality," Gladio grunted, in admiration. "She's _good._ " 

"Hey, I've got it," Prompto said, and then pressed gamely on when nobody asked him what _it_ was. "Luna should drive. Would you like to, Luna? It's a great car." 

"It's _my_ car," Noct began. "And I get to pick who--" 

"It's your _Dad's_ car," Gladio reminded him. "And still his, since he isn't dead, so--" Gladio stopped talking, as he had a thought just then about just what Nyx had meant by _Regis' friends_ , and it made him silent for a long while. 

"Oh," Luna shook her head apologetically. "I don't know how, I'm afraid. I never had the chance to learn." 

"I'll teach you," Noct offered immediately. 

Ignis shook himself out of his ensorcelment. "Don't you dare. You'll ruin her. Lunafreya, if you would allow me, I would be happy to--" 

Noct muttered something about how he wasn't going to ruin anything except Ignis' face, and Gladio let out an exasperated sigh. 

"Guys, can we not start this trip with a giant fight?" 

"Not sure why this one should be any different," Ignis grumbled. 

"It's just that we're still _parked in front of the Citadel,_ " Gladio reminded them, and they were. Nyx was still standing by the front doors. A small crowd had come to see them off. There was a consternated silence in the car, and Umbra could be heard giving a 'wuf' of amusement from the floorboards by Luna's feet. 

"Oh, god." Ignis put his forehead in his hand. "Let's try to leave with some shred of dignity intact, shall we?" 

"Kings are the makers of manners, Iggy," Noct said, and revved the Regalia's engine to an excited roar before throwing her into gear and peeling off towards the gate. 

"The ones you're making are rather messy." Ignis' ruffled spirits were greatly soothed when reached down under the seat and found an ice-cold can of ebony coffee in the cooler, right where he had last left it. He had no doubt the supply was finite, but he felt the occasion warranted such a treat. "Might I ask where we're going?" he asked over the wind, as he cracked it open.

"It's all new, ain't it?" Gladio waved to the Guard on post and settled back into his spot in the back seat. 

"Just waiting for us to look it over," Noct said. "Where do we want to go? Luna?" 

"It does not matter to me where," Luna said. "So long as we may take our time. I have always wanted to travel as you did. I never had the chance to linger... before. Shall we start like that?" 

"Oh, _totally_. Wherever the road goes, amirite?" Prompto leaned up between the two front seats as the gates of the Citadel let them out, and a broad road and a vast horizon opened up before them, surrounded by green trees and blue sky, and far away the gray shadows of mountains above the brilliant mirror of the sea. "But first things first. Luna... do you like chocobos?" 

  


Shiva waited until the Regalia's engines died off in the distance before she returned. Indeed, she had never left, she only made it appear so. "Now," she said, to the seemingly-empty throne room. "You have your task. I will expect reports often." 

The cushion on the throne wiggled, and a furry, calcite-colored snout poked up from the velvet. "No problem!" Carbuncle said, squirming out from under the pillow. "I've been looking after House Lucis for forever and a day. This is old hat, lady." 

"A new world comes with new problems," Shiva said. "You'd best be up to the challenge. And," she opened both her eyes only to close one at the little fox. "This is our little secret." 

The crystal flashed, and they were gone.

  


* * * 

epilogue: final fantasy

Once upon a time there was a good King and Queen who, along with their loyal Knights, came to a new world from a distant star. They brought from that other star a crystal of great power: a magical stone of both magic and mercy. But the world they found was an unknown place, with no map yet made and not one mountain named, so the King and his friends traveled all over until they had left no corner unexplored, and many were the wonders they saw and the adventures they had together. When at last they were tired of wandering they returned to their castle, and found that in their absence the crystal had divided into four new stones: one of air, one of fire, one of water, and one of earth. 

One of the King's Knights took the Crystal of Earth into his keeping, and with its help he carved a home in the northern lands he liked best: a place of tall mountains and vast forests ringed by wild rivers. He built a great city there, with strong walls and lofty towers, and in time it grew to a mighty kingdom known for its brave philosophers and wise warriors. And this became the Kingdom of Amicitia. 

Another Knight took the Crystal of Fire, and made his home in the rich lands of the south, where lush crops grew readily in the soil of a slumbering volcano, and the seas and streams teemed with all manner of fishes. The people of this kingdom won renown for their great wit and for their cuisine, which could not be matched by any other in all the world. And this became the kingdom of Scientia. 

The last Knight was hard-pressed to choose, for he loved his King greatly and likewise his Queen. But at last he was persuaded to take the Crystal of Water, and with it he made a flowing paradise in the midst of the western mountains and deserts, and he built a silver castle of magic and machinery that could fly through the air or tunnel beneath the sands. Swift and sturdy chocobos of every hue dwelt in the royal aviaries, and made short work of every road between them all. And this became the kingdom of Argentum. 

And the King and Queen of the Crystal of Air remained in the East in the Old City, a place of ancient magicks, and happy and prosperous they were there. Their children grew strong and wise under the light of the crystal, and some of their name were fair as the day, and skilled with magic, while others were dark as night, and gifted with blades. And eventually the lines of all the kingdoms were so commingled that they could hardly be separated again, for those who had been made brothers by bonds were at last so by blood. And through it all they remained so, for their arguments were few and short while their visits were often and long, and they were all more often in each others' companionship than not. 

And this is the kingdom of Caelum, with its vast city and gleaming walls, and there the High King rules with the others in peace. And may they all be thus forever, while the sun rises and the stars shine, and the crystals shed their silent light over all. 

 

-the end-

(the beginning)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all I can give them: a second chance. I think they'll use it as best they can. Thank you all for running down this dream with me. Walk tall, my chocobros. Travel well. xoxox - TnK


End file.
